You Are Not Too Busy for the Temple

I remembered today a story that my mission president’s wife told us once.  As far as I remember it, she was in a hotel somewhere staying in a city away from her home for some reason I don’t remember.  She had visited the temple in that city the day before, and yet the Spirit prompted her to go to the temple again.  She related that she pushed back the prompting and wanted to ignore it, justifying that she had just been and that she had far too much to do to go to the temple again.  But eventually she listened and went to the temple.  When she got back she found that there had been a shooting on the very floor she was staying at in the hotel, and the fact that she wasn’t there because she was in the temple had been a great protection to her that day.  The message of that story to me is simple: You are not too busy to go to the temple and you cannot know the blessings that will come by making the sacrifice to serve in the House of the Lord. 

Last night I was up late worrying about a particular decision I have to make, and I went to bed unsettled and seeking guidance for what to do.  I was woken up early by a child, and so I got up and debated whether or not I should go to the temple since I hadn’t made it there this week.  I thought of how I was behind in my work, how many chores needed attention in the house, how I needed to practice the organ for my calling, and all the other things I could get done if I stayed home and did something “productive” in the early hours before the kids were up.  But I decided to go and spend a little time in the temple, and I was very grateful that I did.  I had no earth shattering experience, but by the time I came out I felt “grounded and settled” in regards to this decision I think I need to make despite the fact that I can’t clearly see the way forward (Colossians 1:23).  To me this kind of reassurance for the path of our lives comes mostly freely in the temple; it is in the temple that we go to get the strength to move forward when the road before us seems to daunting.  It is there that the blessing the Prophet prayed for comes to pass: “And we ask thee, Holy Father, that thy servants may go forth from this house armed with thy power, and that thy name may be upon them, and thy glory be round about them, and thine angels have charge over them” (Doctrine and Covenants 109:22). 

I remember a particular Sacrament Meeting that had a significant impact on my wife and me in which the speaker, a sealer in the temple, spoke of how desperately we need to be there in the temple particularly when life is overwhelming and we don’t feel we have the time.  He related it to having cancer and needing to go to chemotherapy treatments—you will be there for the treatments no matter how much time they take or how busy you are with other things because without them the cancer will take your life.  Every other activity pales in importance when you have those appointments to treat your life-threatening disease.  In the same manner, when life overwhelms us and when we feel that we cannot possibly make it to the temple, that’s when we most need the healing treatments that the temple has to offer.  When we don’t have time for the temple is when we need to be there most to receive the strength the Lord can give us. As President Monson put it in one of my favorite talks, “Those who understand the eternal blessings which come from the temple know that no sacrifice is too great, no price too heavy, no struggle too difficult in order to receive those blessings. There are never too many miles to travel, too many obstacles to overcome, or too much discomfort to endure.”