A Sure Foundation, Part 6

As we build our foundation upon the gospel and strengthen our foundation by attending the temple, we will feel and be closer to heaven. The veil is very thin in the temple. As the heavenly and the earthly meet there, we can often feel the presence of those on the other side of the veil. In the temple we take place in the great work of anchoring the generations of humankind together. We anchor ourselves to our ancestors and to the Lord.

Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley spoke of this connection with those who have passed:

"In that sacred and hallowed house there passed through my mind a sense of the tremendous obligation that was mine to pass on all that I had received as an inheritance from my forebears to the generations who have now come after me.

I thought of an experience I had long, long ago. In the summer we lived on a farm. We had a little old tractor. There was a dead tree I wished to pull. I fastened one end of a chain to the tractor and the other end to the tree. As the tractor began to move, the tree shook a little, and then the chain broke.

I looked at that broken link and wondered how it could have given way. I went to the hardware store and bought a repair link. I put it together again, but it was an awkward and ugly connection. The chain was never, never the same.

As I sat in the celestial room of the temple pondering these things, I said to myself, 'Never permit yourself to become a weak link in the chain of your generations.' It is so important that we pass on without a blemish our inheritance of body and brain and, if you please, faith and virtue untarnished to the generations who will come after us.

You young men and you young women, most of you will marry and have children. Your children will have children, as will the children who come after them. Life is a great chain of generations that we in the Church believe must be linked together. I fear there will be some broken links. Do not let yourself become such, I pray.

Stay close to the Church. Stay close all of your lives. It really does not matter where you serve, what office you fill. There is no small or unimportant duty in this Church and in the kingdom of God. (Source; emphasis added).

As we build upon the foundation of Christ, I too pray that we are not weak links in the chain of the ages; I pray that we are not weak stones in the building of the Kingdom of God. We must stay close to the Lord and His gospel. As we strive to keep the commandments, the Savior will be a starting block rather than a stumbling block unto us. We can build our spiritual houses upon the rock of Christ, our sure foundation.

Link to part 5 of this essay.