Foundations

As I studied to teach Sunday School this week I read about the Salt Lake temple. The first time the saints labored to set the foundation it took about 4 years. They built it out of sand stone. In the early 1850's the US government heard that the Mormons were planning to rebel so they sent an army to Salt Lake to investigate. Brigham Young had the saints cover the foundation to look like a field before the army came. After the army left and the stones where uncovered the foundation reveled tons of cracks. Brigham Young told the saints that the foundation would have to be redone! He told them that this temple would need to stand the tests of time, that it would stand in the Millennium and be one of hundreds built. What a blessing those cracks were. If they had not been discovered the temple would have been built and later would have fallen! Although those early saints learned hard work from the hours and years of labor, that first foundation took, the Lord had a greater principle he was teaching. The Lord taught those saints that his plan was so much greater. He taught them that he saw something bigger than they did. It reminds me of our lives...although our intents are good we/I often look back and can see the cracks in my own foundation. I hear the Lord gently reminding me that I do or don't need to be doing something. I hear him tell me "try this, it would work better"; I hear him say "Good job! Keep at it, I am having you become something you can not see." And sometimes I hear that very corrective voice telling me I need to rebuild and that the process is going to be long and difficult...yet very worth it. There is a lesson of the atonement in this story too.
I am reminded that the Lord teaches lessons of building in all the scriptures. Before the restoration of the gospel most of his lessons came in ship building. Noah, Nephi, Ether... I do not believe the Lord really cared that his people knew how to build ships. In all case, that I am aware of, the Lord was teaching obedience and a focus on families...get them to "a higher ground". The Lord is in the business of getting us to think out side ourselves, he always wants us to be doing better and focusing on our families. As ships were being built the builders were focusing and thinking about a better place, a "promised land". So it was with the building of the Salt Lake temple. The saints had something great to look forward too. They were focusing on uniting families. They focused their material efforts and daily labors on doing the Lords will. These efforts focused them on covenants they would make that would unit families for all eternity! So I wonder today; Where is my focus? What am I building? Am I willing to follow HIS plan and even be corrected at times?
How grateful I am for my family. I am grateful for the covenants of the temple...of being sealed to my husband and also my parents. I am grateful we can rebuild foundations. I am grateful we can and are led!