In our recent General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, our prophet, President Monson,
spoke concerning obedience. He quoted Doctrine and Covenants (D&C) 93:26-28,
"The Spirit of truth is of God. I am the Spirit of truth, and John bore record of me, saying: He received a fulness of truth, yea, even of all truth;
And no man receiveth a fulness unless he keepeth his commandments.
He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things."
This scripture is incredibly powerful to me--
keeping the commandments leads to more truth and light. It's easy enough understood, but the more I seek for understanding, the more powerful it becomes.
In the same talk, President Monson said, "
Obedience is a hallmark of prophets." In D&C 39, we are privy to a revelation given by the Lord through Joseph Smith to James Covill, who had been a Baptist minister for about forty years. Covill had covenanted with the Lord that he would obey any command that the Lord would give to him through the Joseph the Prophet.
He had covenanted obedience.
In that revelation the Lord
promises Covill a suite of majesty-- power to become God's son, the Holy Ghost which showeth all things and teacheth the peaceable things of the kingdom, great blessings, deliverance, blessings so great as he never had known, a greater life's work, power, great faith, God with him and before his face, and ultimately: gathering unto God in time and in eternity.
That's a pretty hefty checklist of God's purposes, and they were each given to Covill! The
promises could be said to approach a type of 'fulness,' as promised in DC 93. They could even be said to lead one to be glorified in truth having a knowledge of all things.
Tragically, in the next section (D&C 40), in the
same calendar month of the receipt of the promises of his blessings, we find that
Covill rejected the word of the Lord, and returned to his former principles and people. What? Huh? and, how?
Section 40 teaches that Satan tempted Covill, and the fear and persecution and the cares of the world caused him to reject the Lord's word- the word that made abundant promises. Covill may have been tempted, but wasn't deliverance one of the promised blessings?
This event drives me to ceaselessly consider 1) what blessings have I been promised, and 2) how do I undermine the receipt of my blessings? Covill broke his covenant of obedience, and by so doing, broke himself against the commandments. Disobedience is a breaking of the commandments, and a severing of ourselves from God and His promised blessings.
Therefore, I am greatly motivated to keep the commandments. Even when I don't fully understand their need, or don't feel like it, or am situationally or socially pushed against them. And it seems, every time I
do keep the commandments, no matter how small- I gain an increment of confidence. Even if it doesn't manifest itself immediately.
Three years ago as I considered receiving my endowment in the Temple of the Lord, I was fraught with some internal debate. I was aware of my follies and shortcomings, while being simultaneously aware of the gravity and demand of the covenants I would make if I did receive my endowment. To reconcile these two sides of demarcation, I decided to
live as perfectly faithfully and as perfectly obediently as I could for a period of months. By so doing, I could gain the confidence in my own spiritual willpower and obedience that I would permit me to be comfortable making additional covenants, because I would
know that I had the spiritual willpower and obedience to keep them, perfectly. What ensued what a time of beautiful spiritual growth and obedient discovery that has blessed my life with every decision. At the time I didn't recognize that I would be developing not only willpower and confidence, but that I would be
creating spiritual habits that leant power as well.
Now, three years later, I'm able to invoke hindsight, and comment on some great realizations- the period of striving and trying and working and re-trying continues. It continues with every decision, and with every day, and with every month. I'm still trying to be just as obedient and I can, and just as stringent in keeping the commandments. By paying particular attention to the event-based decisions, which can occur multiple in a minute, we guard ourselves against what happen to Covill in less than a month. I've chosen obedience to be the hallmark of my life, because it's one of the only things of which I have total control.
Obedience is the thing over which we all have total control.
The man who I ardently love and respect asked me to be his wife on February 23, 2013. I've never understood what joy could come to the soul of a human being, especially my soul, until this time. 
