Not sure about the Temple

[amber83]

I have been in a bit of a rough spot lately and have been trying to decide whats important to me and what is not. I got tired of being told I ought to strive for the temple and not every being told what the temple actually is or what you do, so I looked it up and read about it. Maybe not the best idea, but I'm tired of trying to change my life to match the standards of something I'm not even allowed to know about. Now, after reading so much about the temple...I don't think I want to go anymore. This goal has been drilled into my head since before I could even talk and I'm to the point now where I have no idea whats true and whats just been passed down. I am sitting here sobbing and am terribly upset. Not sure what I hope to get out of this thread...but its not like I can call up my friends, or talk to my mother, or anyone else in the church because heaven forbid you have any doubts.

[slamjet]

Look at it as the next level of sacredness and advanced classes in the Gospel. It difficult for anyone of us to describe what you will get out of the Temple because it is so individual. But us, and millions of others who have gone through, and still go through the Temple will tell you how wonderfully sacred it is and that it is absolutely worth it.

I'm not able to go because of my status, but I know of folks who go miles and miles and hours and hours to get there. For me, it's been over a decade and I still have at least a year after my re-baptism to go back. I can't wait to be able to return.

But what I've found that doubt creeps in is when a person is not regularly praying, reading scriptures and/or attending church. You really need to feed your spiritual self to be open to gaining a testimony of what you have and what is to come. In other words, you doubt what's true because you haven't been looking for it in the right places. Get active in the Church, read and pray. You need to strengthen your testimony of the Church, Gospel and the Atonement before you can even think of getting anything out of Temple attendance.

[Wingnut]

While the temple is a worthy goal to strive for, given your situation Amber, it might be better for you to just set it aside right now. I remember your other recent thread about just starting to come back to church. I think you would be better served to focus on coming back into full fellowship before you dive into temple activity. As you meet regularly with your bishop to discuss and work through your repentance process, share with him your concerns about the temple. I promise that being scared about it or having questions will not affect your membership status, your ability to take the Sacrament, or your worthiness as a member of the Church. It will only acknowledge that you're human. :)

Also, a caution that a lot of what you can find online about the LDS temple ceremonies may be less-than-reliable, or that the very least, extremely skewed toward the negative. The people that most tend to post specifics are people who have left the Church, either of their own accord or because they've been excommunicated. They typically have a bone to pick with the Church and have become quite embittered toward it.

[applepansy]

amber, where did you look it up? online? If so, that wasn't a good idea. There is a lot of falsehoods mixed in with a little of the truth on the web.

There are some good threads here that might answer some of your questions. The best place to find out what you want to know is to talk to your bishop. The temple prep class in Sunday School is a good start. Everyone has doubts at some point. We are all converts, even those of us baptized at age 8. At some point in every life there is a crisis of faith. Don't be afraid to talk about this with someone close to you.

Slamjet made some good suggestions. Satan would love nothing more than to turn your heart away from the temple. If that happens he wins.

[Backroads]

I really really recommend reading "The Temple and the Cosmos". Made the most sense for me. Yeah, beware of online things. It might be true, it might be false, but it might also tend to be in a very negative light and won't give you a clear and balanced perspective.

I also agree on setting it aside right now. You're not ready to go, as I'm sure you can see. Forcing yourself to do anything is not a good idea. You're not ready for the temple? Fine. I know you feel pressure from friends and family, but that is just one of those things you are going to have to shrug off as you stand up for yourself.

Focus on other aspects of your spirituality before you even begin to tackle the temple.

[Just_A_Guy]

Lots of great advice. I'd just add that there are also depictions of the temple ceremony online that are semantically accurate, but contextually misleading.

Just like pornography will warp your view of what sex is like, reading the temple ceremony online will give you a completely skewed idea of what really happens there. It takes something sacred and holy, and makes it look cheap and degrading.

There are things in the temple that will--and should--challenge you spiritually. And you're supposed to ask questions, at some point (though there are certainly "time, place and manner" restrictions involved in that process!). But you need to have a solid foundation first. For example, there's no point in delving into the finer points of the Patriarchal Order if you neither understand nor believe the Mormon teachings regarding priesthood.

Edited April 29, 2011 by Just_A_Guy

[amber83]

While the temple is a worthy goal to strive for, given your situation Amber, it might be better for you to just set it aside right now. I remember your other recent thread about just starting to come back to church. I think you would be better served to focus on coming back into full fellowship before you dive into temple activity. As you meet regularly with your bishop to discuss and work through your repentance process, share with him your concerns about the temple. I promise that being scared about it or having questions will not affect your membership status, your ability to take the Sacrament, or your worthiness as a member of the Church. It will only acknowledge that you're human. :)

.

I know that I am no where near "worthy" to go, but I don't want to go through all the effort of changing and repenting if its all a sham. There is no sense in full fellowship if it isn't all true...and I am really having a hard time after reading what I have about the temple....even if its just contextually inaccurate...that isn't the church I was raised in.

[Dravin]

.that isn't the church I was raised in.

That's not accurate, unless you are going to propose that the Temple and it's happenings have been created since you were raised. It is the Church you were raised in, you just have to reconcile that (or not as the case may end up). Ultimately it comes down to your testimony, the Temple and it's happenings were known when the truthfulness of the Church was revealed to you unless somehow the Church was able to hide such from the Holy Ghost/God. Ultimately you are left with a decision:

Seek (or keep seeking) what is required to build/respark your testimony or not. But the Church is the same the day before you read anything as it was/is the day you read it.

Edited April 29, 2011 by Dravin

[eternalpromise516]

Amber - I know some of the things you're going through right now, especially about the temple. For a while, I was very unsure of why I should even bother working towards going to the temple. Right before I started taking the discussions, someone sent me links to the temple ceremonies and said it was all a sham, even though I don't recall anything now of what I read. I didn't want anything to do with it if it was what I thought it was.

However, I prayed about it. I now know that the Lord teaches in deep symbolism, parables, and the like. While I haven't yet been for my own Endowment and experienced the temple ceremonies myself, I do know that I will never be given anything I couldn't handle. Nor would it be a good idea for me for me to go before I understood certain things. While yes, I could just google the entire thing right now and know everything, those who have posted those things have "skewed" as one person stated what the true meaning of those ceremonies is not the true, pure, untarnished ceremony presented in the temple - they have gone and perverted it as Satan has led them further away.

My advice: prayer and fasting. Heavenly Father will NEVER lead you astray from the truth. Also, read the scriptures. Every single answer about the temple, including everything from the ceremonies is in there.

[slamjet]

...but I don't want to go through all the effort of changing and repenting if its all a sham.

That one sentence say's it all. You either are, or have been involved in something that you are either embarrassed about, or you feel you don't want to give up. Either way, until you are willing to give up and change your behavior for the best, you are not going to be happy in the church, or out of the church. I promise you that.

You need to decide what you want. Do you want to live a clean and sober life, or do you want to live the supposed "fun" life the world has to give? You are either on one trail or the other, you can't be on both. Eternal life is not about doing the right thing because it is right, it's about doing the right thing because that's just how you are. It takes a long time to get there, but you need to decide to start. And it's all about what behaviors and habits you want to cultivate. What road you want to be on? Worldly life, or eternal life.

Believe me, I was on the worldly life and I paid a heavy, heavy price for it. I suggest you pick the latter.

[believer]

I know exactly what your talking about Amber. I live a few blocks from the MN Temple and would often feel as if it was something special. Something I needed to know more of. The Temple was in the back of my mind for years as a place I should strive for. Then one day I was at Menards (a home improvement store of which I passed the Temple on the way to)once in the store I felt overcome with what I can only describe as electricity and light. I could not stay. It took some effort but I found my way out of the store, sat in my car for about 30 min. Then on the way home I pulled into the LDS parking lot almost as if on autopilot. Which I had no previous thought of doing until I came upon the temple. I parked the car, approached the meeting house but it was locked. The gates for the Temple were open and my feet walked me to the entrance, and when I looked in I could see it was open so I went in. It was interesting, but not exactly the glory I expected. Perhaps I was expecting to glimpse heaven on earth. But in short it seemed all the white just showed tiny amounts of dirt around the carpet edges and such as glaring reminders of earthliness and man. As if inside the temple even basic laws of cause and effect that wear down carpet fibers would not apply. I was taken to a room where I read a framed explanation of pre-mortal life. I spoke briefly with someone who handed me his iPhone. I spoke with the bishop on it... he was very nice. I feel I would be being insensitive if I said anymore. I will share freely through PM for anyone interested in the rest. I do think the lord led me there, but more or less to let me know I shouldn't hold in it such high regard. At least for this period of my life. I'm not sure what the experience meant that's just what i "think". But I was largely disillusioned. I am of course speaking only of the temple itself and nothing of the ritual or ceremony experienced there. I can't imagine what you are contending with given your history but I thought if I could share my experience as an outsider with an odd experience It might focus you somehow. You say you worry it's just "a sham". I definitely cannot say that is the case. I would say just seek earnestly and heavenly father can help you in unexpected ways. That much I've learned.

[The_Phoenix]

I have been in a bit of a rough spot lately and have been trying to decide whats important to me and what is not. I got tired of being told I ought to strive for the temple and not every being told what the temple actually is or what you do, so I looked it up and read about it. Maybe not the best idea, but I'm tired of trying to change my life to match the standards of something I'm not even allowed to know about. Now, after reading so much about the temple...I don't think I want to go anymore. This goal has been drilled into my head since before I could even talk and I'm to the point now where I have no idea whats true and whats just been passed down. I am sitting here sobbing and am terribly upset. Not sure what I hope to get out of this thread...but its not like I can call up my friends, or talk to my mother, or anyone else in the church because heaven forbid you have any doubts.

What “standards” bother you? Is it the money; the price is the same for everybody. Also other than telling you what is word for word, which can be found in the 1st two chapters of Genesis? You can be almost told everything.

[HEthePrimate]

Amber, it's ok to have questions and doubts. There's also no reason to rush going to the temple if you're either not ready for it, or don't desire to go.

To be honest, I have doubts about the wisdom of expecting people to commit in advance to covenants they have not been fully informed about. In a legal context, a contract may be considered invalid if both parties are not fully informed of what they are committing to. If you looked the temple covenants and ordinances up, perhaps you can now take some time to think about them and see if they're right for you. As I said, there's really no rush.

Different people get different things from the temple and the work performed therein. You may find that you learn a lot from the instruction given in the temple, or the symbolism. You may enjoy feelings of peace, or a sense of refuge from a turbulent world. You may feel the presence of spirits, or just a general feelings of spirituality. And of course, you may enjoy serving the dead by performing ordinance work in their behalf.

On the other hand, it is possible that you will not feel that this is for you, and you are free to refuse to go. I realize there is a lot of pressure from other people in the Church to go to the temple, but keep in mind that God will not force you to do anything.

Take some time. Think about what you know about the Church and about the temple. Weigh the pros and cons. Make your own decision. And, might I add, take a breath and relax a little. If you're uncomfortable with it, you don't have to go. You can always change your mind later, and go then. You may find something in the temple that you like.

Peace,

HEP

[Traveler]

I know that I am no where near "worthy" to go, but I don't want to go through all the effort of changing and repenting if its all a sham. There is no sense in full fellowship if it isn't all true...and I am really having a hard time after reading what I have about the temple....even if its just contextually inaccurate...that isn't the church I was raised in.

For me it is all worth it - even if it is all a sham. I am happy living with the trust and love with my wife and children that come from living a moral life of compassion and giving service.

Just wondering - what about "worthy" do you find so not worth it for today's society?

The Traveler