Answer

Why Is the Family Ordained of God?

“Ordained of God” is a strong phrase, and it is easy to read past. The Proclamation could have said the family is important, or valuable, or good for society. It says something much stronger.

The family is ordained of God because it is the setting He designed for the work of becoming like Him. Ordained means appointed and authorised, not merely approved of. It puts the family in the same category as priesthood and covenant rather than in the category of good social arrangements.

Eternal Truths

God’s own household is the pattern. The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that each person is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents. The family is not a useful institution we invented and God blessed. It is a copy of where we came from.

The plan runs through families rather than around them. Exaltation is described in scripture as a condition of relationship rather than a solitary achievement, which is why sealing exists at all. The family is the unit the plan is built to save.

It is the fundamental unit of society by design, not by accident. The Proclamation says so plainly, and then charges parents and spouses with specific duties that follow from it.

What Can Make This Confusing?

Very few families feel ordained, most weeks. The ordinary experience is laundry, tiredness, conflict and repair, and that gap between the doctrine and the Tuesday makes the phrase sound like it must be describing someone else’s family. President Russell M. Nelson has called the home God’s laboratory of love and service. A laboratory is where you try things and find out what happens. Nobody expects a laboratory to be tidy, only to be running experiments.

Questions to Think About

• Do I treat my family as the place discipleship happens, or as the place I recover from it?
• Which ordinary thing in my home is actually the work?
• What would change if I believed this setting was appointed rather than incidental?

What You Can Do

Pick one ordinary recurring moment this week — a meal, a bedtime, a drive — and treat it as the appointed setting rather than the gap between appointments. That is where individual progression actually happens. The essay behind this answer works through the doctrine at length.

Jesus Christ does His most important work in ordinary households, including yours on an unremarkable week.