Because we said we would, One of the Greatest Gifts from God

We live in an instant gratification and reciprocation world. I want what I want when I want it and if you scratch my back I'll scratch yours, if we're explaining this phenomenon in common cliches. This phenomenon can be very dangerous to our spiritual growth, especially when we assume that Heavenly Father works the same way. It is true that a covenant is a two way agreement between ourselves and Heavenly Father and that Him being able to bless us is dependent upon our obedience, but this is because Heavenly Father is bound by eternal laws and natural consequences. He can't bless us when we do not live up to the laws those blessings are predicated upon.

Yet just because we are obedient we cannot expect that we will be immediately blessed in every circumstance. Often the Lord does bless us because He loves us and does want to give us every blessing we qualify for. But sometimes the greater blessing is having us wait because then our faith can grow. Sometimes blessings don't come until the last watch of the night, the Lord waits until we have put His words to the test and waited simply on our faith that He will keep his word, only then do the blessings come, plus some extra blessings because we trusted the Lord. But sometimes our faith needs to go even deeper, sometimes we need to keep our covenants just because we said we would.

As Sis Joy D. Jones taught sometimes we keep our covenants because we said we would. Shadrach, Meshach and Obednego kept their covenants because they said they would, even when the king threatened to throw them into a furnace if they would not bow to his idol, they told him no, that they had covenanted to have no other gods before the God of Israel and that their God would save them, but if not they would still be obedient. So many times the world would tell us that we can break our word, that we can let something slide "no one will know" they say "does it really make that big of a difference" they ask. The answer is yes, when we let things slide we lose our character of doing what we said we'd do and it becomes easier to only be obedient when we expect a blessing. Sis Jones taught that key to raising a sinless generation is teaching them to keep small promises so that when they make covenants their very nature is used to keeping promises, so that when it really matters we can keep our promise for the sole reason that we gave our word. Satan wants to cloud our eyes so that we only see the here and now, we see all of our hard work, but do not see the tender mercies in our lives and God seems to have forgotten us and His promises to us. So if we are only keeping our promises to get His promises it is easier for Satan to distract and discourage us. If on the other hand we are obedient because we said we would be that is what really matters, our integrity matters that much to us.

Pres Monson taught that "when God speaks and we obey we will always be right". He didn't say we would be immediately blessed, but he did say we would be right. Too often in the last few months I have wondered where my blessings were, I have been trying to be obedient, been trying to be better each day, but those things I really wanted have remained elusive. For years I have clung to Hebrew 11:11, Sarah received strength to conceive because she judged him faithful who had promised, I held to the knowledge God keeps his promises and I know that He does, but sometimes those blessings take time and if we are waiting to take the next step in obedience until God reciprocates we could be waiting for a very long time. If instead we choose to be obedient because we said we would and will continue being obedient even if those blessings don't come, we have grown our faith and our strength and ultimately have been given strength to resist sin and at the end of the day that is one of the greatest gifts our Heavenly Father can give us in this life.