All around the world people are seeking guaranties against the various risks of life. Borrowers want guaranties that they can stay in their houses, even if they cannot pay the mortgage; lenders want guaranties that they will not lose money on bad mortgages; investors want guaranties against bad investments; people living at the water’s edge want guaranties against floods; and even people making guaranties are looking for guaranties that they will not lose money on the guaranties that they have made to others. Guaranties of health, guaranties of wealth, guaranties of safety and happiness, all seem to be in ever increasing demand.
Perhaps what is most disturbing is that people are not just seeking guaranties, but they are looking for others to pay for them. Rather than relying upon their own resources and performance to obtain guaranties, too many are substituting pleas and moans and whines to wheedle free guaranties from others, especially from the government.
In practice, many of these guaranties will fail. Even guaranties from government are unreliable. I recall when a Senator for whom I worked was faced by an agitated constituent, complaining that a government agency reneged on a promise. There was not anything that the Senator could do about the situation, other than to remind the constituent of an important truth about government: they lied.
There is a source of reliable, faithfully honored guaranties. The ancient American prophet Mormon taught a congregation of Christians, “the way whereby ye may lay hold on every good thing.” The way is through faith on Jesus Christ, by whom people from the beginning of time obtained all things worth having, “and thus through faith, they did lay hold upon every good thing” (Moroni 7:21,25).
Unlike many of the guaranties of men and governments, these guaranties are sure, and they also require some reliance by the individual upon his own efforts in order to qualify. In modern times the Savior Jesus Christ has said, “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” (Doctrine and Covenants 82:10)
The qualifying requirements are not onerous. They relate directly to the promises sought. For guaranties of goodness, the Lord asks us to be kind. For guaranties of financial wellbeing, the Lord asks us to follow practices of financial prudence. For guaranties of happy family life, the Lord asks that we love and serve each other. That is to say, to obtain the Lord’s sure guaranties, we are asked to rely jointly upon ourselves and upon the Lord.
The result was summed up by the counsel of another ancient American prophet, Helaman, that he gave to his own sons:
And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. (Helaman 5:12)
That is a guaranty worth having, and well within the budget of each one of us.
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