The Highest Blessings That God Has

In the general conference when President Thomas S. Monson was sustained as the prophet and president of the Church, then-Elder Russell M. Nelson focused on our individual responsibilities to prepare for salvation and exaltation. He said, “As children of the covenant, we have met in this morning’s solemn assembly. Attention has been focused upon the sacred titles of prophets and apostles. But the final responsibility to prepare for salvation and exaltation rests upon each person, accountable for individual agency, acting in one’s own family, bearing another sacred title of mother, father, daughter, son, grandmother, or grandfather.” He also said, “In Church callings we are subject to release. But we cannot be released as parents.” All of our callings and responsibilities in the Church are temporary and will not last with us into the next life. But our family responsibilities will never go away. Our children, our parents, our siblings, and our grandparents will never change—that is the family we have and the family that we can have in eternity if we prepare now for our exaltation through the atonement of Jesus Christ. I remember once my mission president counseling with a missionary who was struggling to get along with his companion. As I remember the account of the conversation I heard, when my mission president suggested that this was good preparation for marriage, the Elder retorted, “But I get to pick my wife!” He responded something like this, “Yes, but you don’t get to pick your children.” Just like missionaries don’t get to pick their companions, it is true that for the most part we did not get to pick our family—in fact, the only person we choose is our spouse and the rest (siblings, parents, children, grandparents etc.) the Lord has given us as He sees fit. And yet we can trust that the Lord has put us in the family where we belong—as imperfect or even dysfunctional as it may feel—and where we can truly find the joy of family bonds now and eternal relationships in the world to come. His goal is to bring to pass the “immortality and eternal life of man,” and one of His major steps in accomplishing that work was to organize us into our families, hoping that we will choose to make them endure (Moses 1:39).

                Two passages of scriptures that President Nelson highlighted in this talk underscore the culture that we should try to create in our families as we seek to lead them back to the Savior. The first is one of my favorite Old Testament passages: “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” We need a culture in our homes of hearing and pondering the words of the Lord. They should be in our hearts and talked about in our homes and taught to our children. Moses continued, “And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (Deuteronomy 6:6-9). In modern speak, we should put scriptures on our walls and keep them in our cars and look at them on our phones and listen to them in our podcasts and turn to them wherever we are. We want our children especially to know that there is guidance and safety and direction in the words of the Lord found in the scriptures. Second, this scripture should guide the way that we interact with each other: “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile” (Doctrine and Covenants 121: 41-42). This passage, which really is a description of who the Savior is, should guide us in how we interact and speak to one another. Gentleness, meekness, kindness, and love should describe the culture of our families, though certainly this is an aspiration to be sought for all our lives and we will inevitably fall short. But as we strive to create a family life centered on the words of the scriptures and on love and kindness, we will have the best chance to “receive the highest blessings that God has in store for His faithful children.”