Covenant Keeping

We teach ourselves through the litany of stories around “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph” that there are blessings to be secured if you are born into the right family (pre-Rockefeller or Carnegie), and that if bad things manage to happen to you despite your lineage (hello Joseph in Egypt) – that God will not forget you because of whom your parents were (Alma the Younger’s story), and that either by your own brilliance (cue Joseph rising in ranks), and/or God’s favor, everything will work out for you and your family (12 tribes family reunion in Egypt).

Sounds like a story that is meant to give people going through a hard time some hope… and I can see how those stories help reinforce the prosperity gospel.

And I have a word to say to these people…

Even in my most orthodox days that elicited a “Really? I mean… really?” response. Now it gets an eye roll or a chuckle. Apparently subtlety wasn’t one of the things passed down from mason to mason from the time of Solomon’s temple.

One interpretation of covenants — you get a kind of watered down version of them and then commit. Later, you get beat over the head because you aren’t doing things in the name of covenants you made.

When we realize that we are children of the covenant, we know who we are and what God expects of us.His law is written in our hearts.

President Russell M. Nelson October 2011 “Covenants”

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/covenants?lang=eng” class=”bbcode_url”>https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/covenants?lang=eng

What do these 2 sentences mean to you personally?

They don’t mean much to me. I never understood he worth that comes from being a child of God. If everyone is a child of God, how does that make me special? Same with covenants — I know what God expects of us, but as I get older, I realize its often leaders trying to motivate us who are doing the expecting, not the Lord necessarily. Knowing who I am comes from life experience and understanding my strengths and weaknesses. Not from having made a covenant. Sorry if this sounds unbelieving, but it’s where my life’s experiences in the church have led me.

I can relate.

There is a line from The Invicibles that has the villian saying, “If everyone is special, than no one is special”. It was very jarring to me at first because it wasn’t something that I expected to hear, and well, it rings true.

I had a really hard time with our lesson on the Abrahamic Covenant because I couldn’t make the leaps from the theoretical covenant that Abraham made with God, to the baptismal & temple covenants we make today granting us the spiritual lineage to those promises of Abraham. I just couldn’t do it studying the topic this time around.

I have decided that I am special because the innate spark of Godliness within me is special (basically a glorified version of “because I said so”). I have also decided that everyone I have ever met, read about, or who has existed is also special for the same reason. And rather than comparing “specialness” (shades of “I’ve got all the truth neener neener neener”), I’m just going to celebrate it wherever I can, and do my best to use my resources to improve myself and enhance the divinity of others.

My bishop when everything came crashing down seemed to rest on covenants. For him, it seemed that he was born a Mormon, The church had made investments in him and he had made promises to the organization, and he would make good on his end of the bargain come hell or high water. I do not believe that he disbelieved any of the truth claims of the church. Rather that his fallback position was even if it was not true he had given his word and his word was his bond. Had he been born a Baptist or Methodist, He would expect to live and die a loyal member of that religion.

It was an interesting perspective. Sort of a “bloom where you are planted” or “Whatsoever thou art, act well thy part.”

Do you think there should be circumstances where we go back on our covenants? At what point should covenants be abandoned?

I currently believe that covenants are useful for 2 main reasons:

1) to apply lifetime behavioral standards and guardrails to help prevent poor life choices.

2) to add meaning and purpose to one’s life.

Therefore, I suppose it would depend on the circumstances of costs and benefits. Rather than “go back on” my covenants, I prefer to reinterpret or repurpose my covenants. I do not need to view my covenants as wholly tied to the church in attending my meetings, paying tithing, wearing G’s, abstaining from coffee and tea, etc. I can instead detach my covenants and my relationships with divinity from the church.

as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, [yes, I want to be in God’s fold] and to be called his people [yes], and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light [always willing to help other people out that need helping];

9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort [yes, particularly those that have lost a loved one], and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, …[there are many ways to “witness” for God. I choose to do it through example. I witness even until death because I will continue to live my Godly example until I no longer live]

10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, [yes, I will serve him in spirit to the best of my ability]

That is more or less how I retain the value in my covenants. I disentangle them from the church as an intermediary and rewire them in a direct path between me and my God.