Over the last few weeks I've had the privilege of studying the texts of all of the temple dedicatory prayers. It is incredible imagining all of the time, talent and sacrifice and the power of God magnified through His faithful servants that has gone into constructing these magnificent Houses of the Lord. Each building is designed and constructed in collaboration with the Spirit and only the very highest quality materials and practices and procedures are utilized. If anything is off by even the slightest amount, everything is ripped out and done again. Once everything has been completed, a prophet of the Lord with the authority of the Holy Priesthood blesses and dedicates each temple. These blessings are scrupulous and exacting in their details. Everything from the foundation and the grounds to the electrical machinery to the door knobs to the Golden statue of Moroni is blessed and dedicated. And after the building has been dedicated, the building is rigorously cleaned and maintained to a standard scarcely seen anywhere else on Earth. But the thing that surprises me is that despite heavenly inspiration and the divine seal of approval and absolutely no expense spared in terms of financial costs or dedicated and loving labor, many of these temples are periodically closed down to be renovated, rebuilt, and rededicated. Could not the Lord have inspired the men and women who worked on the temple with a better design from the very beginning? Could not He have protected the temples a little more from the wear and tear of regular use? Perhaps He could have, but according to His infinite wisdom, He gave each of His children the exact amount of wisdom and strength that they needed for that particular time and place and when it came time to expand their vision and their capacity, He gave them an opportunity to rebuild and rededicate His house to be even better and holier than it had been before. So it is with us. We may have attempted to build something beautiful and meaningful with our lives, doing our best to live up to our covenants and blessed with strength and power from the Lord, and yet still we find ourselves falling short. There is nothing wrong if we occasionally need a little renewal and rededication. That is exactly as it should be. I hope that when it becomes obvious that we have fallen into disrepair, we will not simply ignore the signs that we need to close down and rebuild but we will instead invite the hand of the Lord into our lives so that He may show us the way to build back up our life until it is better than before and we can rededicate ourselves to being the best possible version of ourselves.
