A Way Will Be Prepared for Us

“The fruit of keeping covenants is the companionship of the Holy Ghost and an increase in the power to love.”

“...a way will be prepared for us to keep our covenants, however difficult that may now appear, if we go forward in faith.”

Henry B. Eyring - "Witnesses for God" - October 1996 Gen. Conf.

He Will Never Desert Us

“He (God) will feed us, ... He will clothe us, ... He will shelter us. We know that He watches over us. We know that His angels are round about us, and that nothing occurs but, in His providence, if we do right, will be controlled for our good and for our eventual salvation.

He will let no trial descend upon us without giving us strength and grace to endure it, if we will live so as to obtain it. This is His promise to us. And God is bound irrevocably by His covenant to us.“

“When we went forth into the waters of baptism, and covenanted with our Father in heaven to serve Him and keep His commandments, He bound Himself also, by covenant to us, that He would never desert us, never leave us to ourselves, never forget us; that in the midst of trials and hardships, when everything was arrayed against us, He would be near unto us and would sustain us. That was His covenant, and He has amply fulfilled it up to 1 the present time, and has shown that we can tie to the promises that He has made. We have proved these things through experience.”

George Q. Cannon, Salt Lake Tabernacle, August 6, 1893; see Collected Discourses 3:330 and Gospel Doctrine 1:170) (No Link)

Children Will Forever Be Bound to You

We cannot overemphasize the value of temple marriage, the binding ties of the sealing ordinance, and the standards of worthiness required of them. When parents keep the covenants they have made at the altar of the temple, their children will be forever bound to them.

Our Moral Environment - Boyd K. Packer - May 1992 Ensign

Might Find Joy

A successful parent is one who has loved, one who has sacrificed, and one who has cared for, taught, and ministered to the needs of a child. If you have done all of these and your child is still wayward or troublesome or worldly, it could well be that you are, nevertheless, a successful parent.

Perhaps there are children who have come into the world that would challenge any set of parents under any set of circumstances. Likewise, perhaps there are others who would bless the lives of, and be a joy to, almost any father or mother.

My concern today is that there are parents who may be pronouncing harsh judgments upon themselves and may be allowing these feelings to destroy their lives, when in fact they have done their best and should continue in faith. That all who are parents might find joy in their efforts with their children is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

"Parents' Concern for Children" - Howard W. Hunter - Ensign, Nov. 1983, pp. 63-65 also in April 1995 Ensign, p. 21

Inherit Covenants and Promises

There are some great spiritual promises which may help faithful parents in this church. Children of eternal sealings may have visited upon them the divine promises made to their valiant forebears who nobly kept their covenants.

Covenants remembered by parents will be remembered by God. The children may thus become the beneficiaries and inheritors of these great covenants and promises. This is because they are the children of the Covenant.

James E. Faust, "The Greatest Challenge in the World—Good Parenting," Ensign, Nov. 1990, 32

Spiritual Help

This principle has to do with the hope that Latter-day Saints have as they honor the sacred gospel covenants they made at the marriage altar in the temple. They and their children born or sealed in the covenant have a right to spiritual help in this life.

Even those children who have for a time forsaken the gospel often speak of a recurring, troubling need to return to the fold. Perhaps these desires come to them because they are children of the covenant—children whose hearts, planted with patriarchal promises, “shall turn to their fathers.”

When a Child Wanders - Robert Millet

Trials Shall Be Lifted

By keeping the covenants of the gospel, all of the momentary trials of life can be transcended.

Gospel Covenants Bring Promised Blessings - Paul E. Koelliker - October 2005 General Conference

Ye Shall Be Found at the Right Hand of God

7 And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.

8 And under this head ye are made free, and there is no other head whereby ye can be made free. There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives.

9 And it shall come to pass that whosoever doeth this shall be found at the right hand of God, for he shall know the name by which he is called; for he shall be called by the name of Christ.

Mosiah 5: 7-9

He Will Bless Us With All He Has

Giving careful attention to covenant making is critical to our eternal salvation. Covenants are agreements we make with our Heavenly Father in which we commit our hearts, minds, and behavior to keeping the commandments defined by the Lord. As we are faithful in keeping our agreement, He covenants, or promises, to bless us, ultimately with all that He has.

Gospel Covenants Bring Promised Blessings - Paul E. Koelliker - October 2005 General Conference

The Lord Will Bring Us to His Sacred Presence

I express my love for the covenants and ordinances of the temple and commit to redouble my effort to participate in these holy houses of God. I know, as we make and keep sacred covenants, the Lord will bring us to His sacred presence.

Gospel Covenants Bring Promised Blessings - Paul E. Koelliker - October 2005 General Conference

Eternal Life

If we make the covenants in our lives that lead to eternal life, and then keep them, we will receive eternal life. We will also have the joy that accompanies righteous living.

Our Covenants Are Our Protection - Paul V. Johnson - BYU Idaho Devotional November 20, 2001

Claim Upon the Blessings of the Gospel

“(Those born under the covenant,) being heirs, they have claim upon the blessings of the gospel beyond what those not so born are entitled to receive. They may receive a greater guidance, a greater protection, a greater inspiration from the Spirit of the Lord; and then there is no power that can take them away from their parents.

“Those born under the covenant, throughout all eternity, are the children of their parents. Nothing except the unpardonable sin, or sin unto death, can break this tie...parents may still feel after them and eventually bring them back near to them again.”

Harold C. Brown - "What Hope Does the Gospel Give to Parents of Errant Youth?" - 1993 Ensign

Spiritual Help

This principle has to do with the hope that Latter-day Saints have as they honor the sacred gospel covenants they made at the marriage altar in the temple. They and their children born or sealed in the covenant have a right to spiritual help in this life. Even those children who have for a time forsaken the gospel often speak of a recurring, troubling need to return to the fold. Perhaps these desires come to them because they are children of the covenant—children whose hearts, planted with patriarchal promises, “shall turn to their fathers.”

Harold C. Brown - "What Hope Does the Gospel Give to Parents of Errant Youth?" - 1993 Ensign

Children Will Forever Be Bound to You

We cannot overemphasize the value of temple marriage, the binding ties of the sealing ordinance, and the standards of worthiness required of them. When parents keep the covenants they have made at the altar of the temple, their children will be forever bound to them.

Our Moral Environment - Boyd K. Packer - May 1992 Ensign

No Power of Earth or Hell Can Separate You

Let the father and mother, who are members of this Church and Kingdom, take a righteous course, and strive with all their might never to do a wrong, but to do good all their lives; if they have one child or one hundred children, if they conduct themselves towards them as they should, binding them to the Lord by their faith and prayers, I care not where those children go, they are bound up to their parents by an everlasting tie, and no power of earth or hell can separate them from their parents in eternity; they will return again to the fountain from whence they sprang.

Doctrines of Salvation: Sermons and Writings of Joseph Fielding Smith

You Shall Return to the Fold

The Holy One of Israel, who is the Mediator of the covenant, has promised that when a seal is placed upon a father and mother—a seal that comes through faithfulness to their eternal covenants—their children will be bound to them forever.

Even if the children stray, the tentacles of the everlasting covenant will feel after them and they shall, either here or hereafter, return to the fold. We do not fully understand all of the implications of this marvelous promise, but we trust in the ransoming and redeeming power of our Lord who is also our Savior

When a Child Wanders - Robert Millet

Ye Shall Return to Live WIth Your Parents

God has fulfilled his promises to us.“ President Lorenzo Snow explained, 'and our prospects are grand and glorious. Yes, in the next life we will have our wives, and our sons and daughters. If we do not get them all at once, we will have them some time, for every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is the Christ.

You that are mourning about your children straying away will have your sons and daughters. If you succeed in passing through these trials and afflictions and receive a resurrection, you will, by the power of the Priesthood, work and labor, as the Son of God has, until you get all your sons and daughters in the path of exaltation and glory.

This is just as sure as that the sun rose this morning in yonder mountains. Therefore, mourn not because all your sons and daughters do not follow in the path that you have marked out to them, or give heed to your counsels.

In as much as we succeed in securing eternal glory, and stand as saviors, and as kings and priests to our God, we will have our posterity... God will accomplish his purposes in the salvation of His sons and daughters...

Lorenzo Snow Address : October 6, 1893 (No Link)

The Shepherd Will Find His Sheep

You parents of the wilful and the wayward! Don't give them up. Don't cast them off. They are not utterly lost. The Shepherd will find his sheep. They were his before they were yours—long before he entrusted them to your care; and you cannot begin to love them as he loves them.

They have but strayed in ignorance from the Path of Right, and God is merciful to ignorance. Only the fulness of knowledge brings the fulness of accountability.

Our Heavenly Father is far more merciful, infinitely more charitable, than even the best of his servants, and the Everlasting Gospel is mightier in power to save than our narrow finite minds can comprehend.

A Word For The Wayward - Orson F. Whitney - Conference Report, April 1929 (No Link)

Strong Influence of Beloved Ancestors

Perhaps in this life we are not given to fully understand how enduring the sealing cords of righteous parents are to their children. It may very well be that there are more helpful sources at work than we know. I believe there is a strong familial pull as the influence of beloved ancestors continues with us from the other side of the veil.

President James E. Faust, "Dear are the Sheep that have Wandered", May 2003 Ensign

Parent and Children

Some parents suffer greatly because they blame themselves unduly for having been poor parents. In this position they are likely to misapply President David O. McKay's wonderfully prophetic statement that “no other success can compensate for failure in the home” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1964, 5).

They seem to draw the unintended implication that since they have a child who is abusing drugs or alcohol, they must be failures as parents; hence, no matter how hard they have tried, no other good they have done or success they have achieved can compensate for their parental failure at home.

Because this statement was intended to inspire parents to become or stay involved with their children, it should not be taken to mean that parents who have indeed put great time, effort, and sacrifice into parenting, and yet who have still not reaped the desired rewards, have failed. A closer look at additional counsel and doctrines may provide much needed perspective.

John K. Carmack, "When Our Children Go Astray," Ensign, Feb. 1997, 7