Great questions. I echo DJ in saying that the covenants and ordinances can mean different things to different people.DancingCarrot wrote: ↑27 May 2018, 16:02 My questions would be:
-What if I don’t think God wanted me to ever get baptized or go through the temple? In the scripture you reference it mentions “as a witness to him”, but I’m curious as to why God would need a witness. It makes more sense that we, ourselves and our communities, need witnesses more than God would.
-In the first scripture it also mentions being of God’s people. My question is when did I ever stop?
I do not know if God exists or if He does exist that He cares that 8 year old me was baptized. However, it did matter to me.
My dad baptized me and my best friend was sitting in the front row when I came up out of the water. My father ordained me to the priesthood, his name is on my priesthood line of authority. I knelt in the sealing room of the Salt Lake temple and covenanted to receive the woman that is the great love of my life.
These ordinances and covenants have meaning to me because they ritually tie me to people that I care about. Because of that, I find them to be worth keeping, repurposing, and honoring. For me, they are part of the metaphorical "baby" to be retained while discarding the "bathwater". I am able to keep my baptism as a meaningful experience without associating it with guilt and duty to do whatever my church leaders are trying to twist my arm to do. There is no, "You were baptized so clean the church building this Saturday" for me. There are other ordinances/covenants that I am more ambivalent about (Gift of HG, initiatory, endowment, etc.). I do not dislike them and I am not throwing them out but they are not pivotal in my narrative journey.
When it comes down to it, I get to be the author of my own story. Which parts of my story should I highlight as being important for my trajectory? Was there a fork in the road where I took the path less traveled? What were the important mile posts, mile markers, and landmarks? Were there any rites of passage in my coming of age years? I can order them and prioritize them with the perspective of hindsight to tell the "Hero's journey" of my own life.