| A COUPLE OF OLD GUYS by Clark Smith <[email protected]>, EFY speaker, ESPN cameraman Recently the youth in the Santa Cruz Stake in Northern California invited a couple of old guys to speak at their annual conference. At the end of all the food, fun and dancing, they assembled in the chapel to hear some words from these elderly gentlemen. The first guy, a 40-year-old, tall, dark and handsome individual who writes columns for LDSWorld-Gems, got up and spoke of the importance of temple marriage and how critical the 5 years between the ages 14-19 are in making sure young people reach that goal. He mentioned things like staying worthy in a world of evil influences. Most importantly, he stressed the importance of the eternal covenants that they would make in the temple that day and those would last eternally as long as they were righteous. The next speaker got up and opened with an interesting comment. "Why do a couple of old guys come and talk to you young people about temple marriage"? Why do bishops, stake presidents, youth leaders, parents, and lots of wise "old" people keep repeating this lesson? Although the speaker had wisdom beyond his years, this 38-year-old athlete still had the appearance of being quite young. To follow up to his opening remarks about temple marriage he used the analogy of being a quarterback in the pocket looking for a receiver down field. He mentioned how difficult it is to "see" his target when several 6 foot 7 inch tall, 600-pound monsters are obscuring his view. What made it even tougher was the fact that those big monsters were getting paid millions of dollars to keep him from reaching his target and smash him in the process. Early in this athlete's career an "older" coach pulled aside this fine young quarterback and offered some advise. "You'd better start seeing your receivers or you'll be out of a job". He listened and discovered that if he waited until the target was wide open in plain site it was too late. He had to start his throwing actions and aim for the spot where the receiver should be and trust that he would be there to catch the ball. He started by visualizing in his mind and then practiced throwing to the places the receivers would be all by himself for hours on end. It began to work as the ball landed safely in the receiver's hands and the YOUNG quarter back went on to become the most valuable player in the league. (If you haven't caught on yet...his name is Steve Young). He then made the point that beginning a throwing action without seeing the target requires a lot of faith. Similar to a teenager having faith to start their morally clean actions now even though temple marriage may be 8-10 years down the road and not in plain site. That's why us old people keep talking about this thing called temple marriage. We're just like the old football coach who has been to the super bowl and now wants to help his young players all get there too. President Gordon B. Hinckley said: "You will wish to be married in one place and one place only. That is the house of the Lord. You cannot give to your companion a greater gift than that of marriage in God's holy house, under the protective wing of the sealing covenant of eternal marriage. There is no adequate substitute for it. There should be no other way for you." (General Conference, April 1998, Priesthood session, "Worthy of the Girl you will someday marry"). Look forward like Alma with the eye of faith. Decide in the privacy of your own bedroom that you WILL marry in the temple and that you will never let any momentary unholy pleasure jeopardize the eternal rewards of that sacred ordinance. If you think that you can live an unclean teenage lifestyle and then automatically turn into a temple worthy person when Mr. or Miss Right come into your life, you are sadly mistaken. So, why do us old people keep talking about temple marriage to young people? We know about the big snorting evil forces that are working 24 by 7 to keep you from seeing the eternal target. We are up in the press box with a bird's eye view of your playing field. We see the defense and we have played against them before and won some of the battles. However, we have also watched others get hurt and even some battles lost. We have the headsets on and we are just trying to communicate with you to warn you of the defense and point you toward the right goal. All you have to do is listen, and trust us. Even though you can't see over the big linemen, you must have the faith that your worthy actions as a teenager will eventually pay off in the years to come when you kneel across the alter of a worthy partner to be sealed for time and all eternity. Our job as old people is to somehow teach young people how to bridge the gap between righteous behavior as a teenager and the eternal rewards you'll receive as an adult, even though they may be many years apart. |