By choosing to be bound to my Savior through the covenants I have made with God, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). My efforts to keep my covenants—though not perfect—have been rewarded with an increased capacity to do what has been asked of me. I have been blessed with a greater capacity to serve. I have been blessed with the inspiration I need to do the Lord’s work in the ways He would have me do it. With faith in the Lord, I have been blessed to face my challenges with optimism. It is God’s power that eases my way—albeit a way that is uphill!
Life is like driving through a snowstorm—it helps to have a guide.
Illustrations by Michael J. Bingham
Some time ago, I felt impressed to embark on a road trip to visit family in Salt Lake City, an eight-hour drive from our home in Colorado. With little planning, I loaded up our three young daughters and began the trek. We left later in the day than was wise. My husband stayed behind due to prior commitments. It was an unseasonably warm October day both in Denver, where we lived, and in Salt Lake, so I grossly underestimated the wintry roads ahead as Interstate 80 crosses Wyoming.
We started our journey uneventfully, but temperatures dropped quickly as we gained elevation. I became nervous and full of doubt. Our van had new tires but no four-wheel drive. I hadn’t packed warm clothes or blankets. I was terribly unprepared for something to go wrong. I pulled over to check road conditions and decided to press forward, but a few hours later I was white-knuckle driving in the worst snowstorm of my life.
I laughed and sang with my kids so they wouldn’t sense my unease. I knew this stretch of interstate was no stranger to terrible weather-related accidents. Large snowflakes streaked past the windshield in heavy sheets and blurred my vision. I could hardly make out a landmark anywhere on the road.
I dreaded the occasional 18-wheeler throwing snow and slush across the windshield as it passed. I watched several vehicles slide off the road into ever-deepening snowbanks. I knew I was in trouble. The pressure I felt to keep my girls warm and safe weighed on me as we crept slowly along in the dark.
A Lifesaving Message
Suddenly, I felt my phone buzz with a notification.
I had been ignoring my messages to focus on the road but glanced down and saw that my brother, who I thought was home in Texas, had texted me: “We are passing through a bad blizzard in the middle of Wyoming.” I was surprised to learn that my brother and his wife were just a few miles ahead in the storm. They were en route to Idaho in a vehicle much safer than mine and well prepared for cold weather. Our intersection was no coincidence. The storm persisted, but I was not alone.
I called them. Relief washed over me as they talked me through the blizzard. At times, they didn’t have good news. At one point, fatigued from the tedious driving, I asked if the roads ahead had cleared up. “It’s pretty bad around mile marker 280,” my brother responded. “Take your time.”
Soon, I completely lost visibility and resorted to keeping my right front tire along the rumble strip on the side of the road. For many long minutes I continued forward, trusting only the sound of those vibrations to keep us safe on the road. Finally, the skies cleared, and I stopped for the night at a hotel, too exhausted to go on.
I never saw my brother and his wife, but I knew they were there. I didn’t realize how panicked I would have felt without their guidance until my kids were safe and warm in our hotel room. My brother’s knowledge of the specific path ahead gave me the perspective I needed to keep moving forward. Without him, my fear of the next snowy mountain pass might have left me highly reactive, and one anxious tap of the brakes could have sent us off the road.
Here I was, trying to make it to the safety and familiarity of my parents’ home, and my older brother showed up to trudge the path before me. How sad it would have been if I had driven this road never knowing that he was ahead and never accessing the peace available to me. Just as our Savior is there for us, my brother was there even when I couldn’t see him.
All Are Invited
Reflecting on this experience has deepened my testimony of many gospel truths. First, each and every one of God’s children on this earth is invited to walk with Jesus Christ in covenant relationship with Him. Just as I left late and prepared poorly for my trip, we may feel unqualified at times for the help only He can offer us. However, our inadequacy is not just OK; it’s expected. Do not allow the adversary to tell you otherwise.
As Paul said:
“I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
“Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:38–39).
In humility we can remember it is the Savior who qualifies us through His atoning sacrifice to walk with Him and receive His help. No efforts of our own would ever be enough without Him.
He Is Always There
I also learned that we are never as alone as we sometimes feel. The paths we are asked to walk in mortality can feel lonely. Our Heavenly Father doesn’t intend for us to always have blue skies. But in covenant relationship with the Savior, we can combat feelings of loneliness and despair. While our circumstances may not change and some trials may persist, Jesus Christ is always there and can enable us to find hope, peace, and joy even while we experience sorrow, disappointment, and pain. Just as I asked if the storm had passed and was told to stay the course, we may receive answers to be patient and vigilant amid the storms of life.
President Russell M. Nelson has made this emphatic promise:
“Jesus Christ extends [an] invitation to you today. I plead with you to come unto Him so that He can heal you! …
“Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. … Turn to Him! Follow Him!”
We can draw near to the Savior and increase our capacity to feel His presence through our commitment to daily prayer and scripture study, paying tithing, participating in sacred temple ordinances, honoring the Sabbath day, worshipping with other Saints, demonstrating our willingness to sacrifice and obey, and living the gospel in our daily lives. These regular acts of worship tether us to our Savior.
A Path of Protection
Lastly, I have reflected on the power of clinging to our covenants when the path forward is not clear. The rumble strip kept us safely on the road when I was unable to see. In an uncertain world and time, there remains a path of safety and peace. If I consider this rumble strip to represent the covenant path of my life, I can imagine critics mocking my “blind faith.” But my faith is not blind. I have never seen a rumble strip lead away from the road and wander into unknown terrain. My experience has taught me to use the strip to navigate through low visibility.
Similarly, the path set for us by the Savior through modern revelation is a path of protection. It requires constant, concentrated efforts to avoid deception and disorientation. Although the mists of darkness and diverse paths are real (see 1 Nephi 8:23–24, 31–32), we can find our way if we stay committed to Jesus Christ.
I believe that through these simple truths, we can keep our gaze focused on the Savior and receive His help. Bound to Him by covenant, we can accept our eternal potential, feel peace and joy knowing we are never alone, and find spiritual safety despite uncertain times.
Think of a starving Esau sitting before a bowl of stew, contemplating whether he should trade his birthright for it to satisfy his very real hunger (see Gen. 25:29–34). Now imagine that he is always hungry and that he sits in front of that stew all day every day and that it follows him to every classroom, every meeting, every conference, and every social-media platform. That is our situation. We constantly face the powerful and corrosive temptation to trade away our covenantal birthright in order to satisfy our appetite for delicious—but never really satisfying—worldly approval.
While Esau handed over his whole birthright in a single moment of hunger, our temptation is usually to do it more gradually, one small choice at a time. We might do it with a wink or a roll of the eyes intended to show our skeptical peers that while we may be in the Church, we are not fully of the Church. We might do it when someone makes derisive comments about the proclamation on the family2 and we look at our shoes. Or when we receive prophetic encouragement to “root out racism” in the Church3 and we murmur along with our like-minded friends about Church leaders getting too “woke.”
Now let me take a moment to say, parenthetically, that I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking, “But Rick, it’s easy for you to say this—you’re already a nerd. You’re a professional nerd. Socially, you’ve got nothing to lose by standing up for the gospel!”
And, honestly, I have to concede the point: I am a middle-aged, bow-tie-wearing, banjo-playing librarian; for me, the Ship of Coolness sailed a very long time ago. With no real hipness to safeguard, maybe I have less skin in this game than most of you.
But even if I am the wrong messenger, the message is still true. We can’t keep our covenants with a wink.
Real Choices and False Choices
When it comes to the restored gospel, the chasm between what is true and what it is socially and academically acceptable to believe is just too wide for us to be able to stand with one foot on each side. Christ was either physically resurrected or He wasn’t; the Book of Mormon can’t simultaneously be a genuine record of God’s dealings with real, ancient people and a 19th-century invention of Joseph Smith; Russell M. Nelson can’t simultaneously be a true prophet called of God and someone who is merely revered as a moral and organizational leader by members of the Church of Jesus Christ.
President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
My dear brothers and sisters, these are the latter days. If you and I are to withstand the forthcoming perils and pressures, it is imperative that we each have a firm spiritual foundation built upon the rock of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.2
So I ask each of you, how firm is your foundation? And what reinforcements to your testimony and understanding of the gospel are needed?...
Should distance, health challenges, or other constraints prohibit your temple attendance for a season, I invite you to set a regular time to rehearse in your mind the covenants you have made....
And to each of you who has made temple covenants, I plead with you to seek—prayerfully and consistently—to understand temple covenants and ordinances.18 Spiritual doors will open. You will learn how to part the veil between heaven and earth, how to ask for God’s angels to attend you, and how better to receive direction from heaven. Your diligent efforts to do so will reinforce and strengthen your spiritual foundation.
Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
So, through abundance as well as poverty, through private acclaim as well as public criticism, through the divine elements of the Restoration as well as the human foibles that will inevitably be part of it, we stay the course with the true Church of Christ. Why? Because as with our Redeemer, we signed on for the whole term—not ending with the first short introductory quiz but through to the final exam. The joy in this is that the Headmaster gave us all open-book answers before the course began. Furthermore, we have a host of tutors who remind us of these answers at regular stops along the way. But of course, none of this works if we keep cutting class.
From a commencement address, “Launch with Power through Christlike Living,” given at Southern Virginia University on April 28, 2023.
As sons and daughters of heavenly parents, we should ask ourselves, “What would God have me do?”...
To become more like Jesus, I invite you to take upon yourselves three foundational principles of Christlike living.
First, live your life by covenant, not convenience....you are likely to find that life will bring challenges that appear unusually difficult or even insurmountable. These can take many forms—from financial or workplace struggles to emotional or physical impairment to family division and collapse. To surmount these obstacles, you will need power from beyond yourself. The question you will need to answer is, Where do I find such power?
While speaking in a devotional to members in a country where its people were burdened with a struggle for jobs and food to eat, President Russell M. Nelson told them: “The Lord Himself has said, ‘My people must be tried in all things’ (Doctrine and Covenants 136:31). … Remain firm in your covenant path … and you will have the strength to face any challenges. … God will protect and care for you.” He later expounded, “The reward for keeping covenants with God is heavenly power.”
There is no individual who does not need power from on high, and such power comes most abundantly from an inward commitment to a life girded to God’s covenant path. Begin with that end in mind, and you will find hidden reservoirs of miracles and power available to you in your most trying hours.
Years ago, I worked as a senior managing partner at one of the world’s leading private equity firms when my wife and I were interviewed by a senior member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He called us to serve as mission leaders for the Church in Africa. We had many things going on in our life at that time. We were involved in some very challenging family dynamics. We were heavily engaged in large humanitarian efforts across the world while also managing a large and rapidly growing global investment business. As we sat there that day with this beloved Apostle and reflected on our personal situation, we both politely said that this was probably not the best time for us to serve a mission.
Without hesitation, this member of the Twelve turned to my wife and said, “Lynette, you are going to make a great missionary and companion to your husband.” He then turned to me and said, “You really don’t get it. The Lord is calling you to save your life. You are either going to live your life by covenant or convenience. There is never a convenient time to serve. This is a matter of faith. You either believe that the Lord will bless your life with the blessings you need, as you do His priorities, or you don’t.”
Those words changed my life. I left my company, went to Africa, and later found all that we had worried about was answered and resolved.
One of the great attacks upon your soul will be the temptation to choose only those parts of covenant living that are within your comfort zone. Yet you cannot choose which commandments to keep and which to omit if you are to have heaven’s full power in your life.
President Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, once impressed upon me this very reality. We were discussing a certain policy that the Church had undertaken. It had led to much public criticism of Church leaders. He said to me: “I want people to like me, but when I say my prayers at night, I hear His voice say to me: ‘Hal, I don’t need people to like you. I need you to do my will.’” That is the great charge of covenant living—no matter the situation we find ourselves in, no matter how unpopular, we are to do God’s will. Only as we live our lives by covenant, with full purpose of heart, and not by convenience will we receive His richest blessings, His most enabling power.
Second, rise above indifference, adversity, and contention. Strive to make your life a beacon of light and truth that shines before others around you....
More than ever, in a society that is ever pressing to have us think of others in terms of race, gender, or even vaccination status, ours is a spiritual challenge of not turning away but of building pathways of unity versus contention, of loving our neighbor, of building bridges of community service and in defense of the family....
It has been said, “The unwounded bears no resemblance to the Savior.” Life is about doing good through trials of adversity and scars. As part of a divine plan, each of us is part of a world where good and evil coexist and where we are to deal with and work though opposition in all things (see 2 Nephi 2:11).
I believe adversity will always lead us to a twofold temptation: one will be to cast blame on others—to become a victim—and a second will be to let failure paralyze us into inaction.
Third, bear the burdens of one another....
God will always be at the helm when we minister to His sons and daughters in need....
people are always more important than meetings....
As you strive to live by covenant, not convenience, you will be made to impact all you touch for good. You will receive the needed courage and voice to set aside adversity, to honor and save life, to guard family, and to frame a better and peaceful tomorrow.
God is able to make much more of your life than you can alone. My prayer is that your desire will be to meet the challenge of your day and emerge the child of God you are, being one with Him throughout your life and becoming who God would have you become.
