Narrow and wide paths
There are two paths that can be walked in this life:
13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7)
The wide path is found after the wide gate. This is by far the more popular choice: “many be called, but few chosen.” (Matthew 20:16) This is the default choice. It leads to “destruction.”
This path actually doesn’t go anywhere. It may keep us busy and give us the illusion of stable comfort, but because it is devoid of real growth, it can’t improve us. This path is insufficient here and hereafter.
The wide gate and wide path are inclusive. They are filled with people milling about, convinced that activity is the same as progress. This is where you end up by default. These people are a herd with a herd mentality. They do not question. They do not think. They do not search. They assume that whatever they think is right, and that what they know is all there is to know. This is not the way of truth.
The narrow path comes after the narrow gate. You can’t get on that path without going through the gate. Choosing the narrow gate requires you to seek for truth beyond what is believed by the majority of people. You have to question. You have to think. You have to assume that whatever you think is incorrect or incomplete. This is the way of truth.
An attempt has been made at least once in scripture to describe how one enters into the gate:
...do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost. (2 Nephi 31:17)
It is easy to get bogged down in parsing the details of this description. What is repentance? What is the significance of baptism by water? What is remission of your sins? What does it mean to have it “by fire and by the Holy Ghost”?
Here is a more specific description untied from deeper concepts: You enter the gate by dedicating yourself to the search for truth, realizing this will be an unending quest that will require all things to be questioned. You begin the lifelong implementation of this decision by reconciling yourself to everything you currently know.
Once you are in the gate, you begin walking the narrow path. In scriptural terms, you:
...press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. (2 Nephi 31:20)
In plain terms, you diligently search for more truth, and continue reconciling yourself to everything you learn, and eventually you will acquire all the knowledge required for eternal life.
If the description of the narrow gate and narrow way are so simple (continuously search for truth and keep yourself reconciled to it), why do so few find it? Why are so few “chosen”?
The Lord said:
35 Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—
36 That...the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
37 That [when they deviate from this] the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved....
38 Behold, ere he is aware, he is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints, and to fight against God. (D&C 121)
It is rare to enter into the narrow path and difficult to remain on the narrow way because we prefer the illusion of the things as the world shows us or as we wish they were to things as they really are.
When we act contrary to our sincere understanding of what is good, we lose light. “And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.” (D&C 93:39) We are removed from the narrow path and start back outside the narrow gate. We are exposed to the consequences of our acting against reality, and will remain subject to those consequences until we submit to the search of truth and sincere reconciliation to our understanding of what is good.
Heed and diligence
Suppose you are a warrior. Your success in battle depends upon the skill with which you wield your weapons. If you don’t even know what weapons you have, how can you fight effectively? Having weapons does no good, even if you know about them, if you have not practiced using them. You will not win battles you otherwise would have won if you don’t know what weapons you have and don’t practice using them.
There are only two things that control your rate of acquisition of truth. First is obedience to what you already know. The second, explored in this chapter, is the effort you invest in finding more:
18 Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.
19 And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come. (D&C 130)
God has appointed that truth should only be imparted according to one’s heed and diligence:
And now Alma began to expound these things unto him, saying: It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him. (Alma 12:9)
The more heed and diligence you exercise, the more truth you will obtain. Obedience is discussed in several chapters in Part 1. Part 2 will provide you with tools to understand and increase your diligence.
Hungering and thirsting after righteousness
The Lord said: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5:6) Hungering and thirsting after righteousness is to desire truth so badly that it is like being hungry for food or thirsty for water. It means to want light and truth more than you want anything else. More than entertainment, more than relationships, more than food or sleep.
Note that “they shall be filled” does not mean that they will not desire more truth. Jesus also said: “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14)
When God reveals new truth to a man, or gives a man light and truth to any degree, he:
- Is surprised, because it will expand or counter what he previously thought.
- Will have an insatiable appetite for more.
For instance, after God revealed a great deal of truth to Moses, Moses said: “I will not cease to call upon God, I have other things to inquire of him.” (Moses 1:18) God had answered questions Moses didn't even know he had. Yet, despite the inundation of information from God, he immediately wanted more.
Your desire is synonymous with your diligence, because if you have the one, you have the other.
Diligence in seeking truth is comprised of three components: your effort, your motivations, and your time.
Effort is the answer to the question, what do you do? Do you search for truth wherever you can find it, and on all topics? Or do you just confine it to overtly spiritual topics and/or those that do not touch your sacred cows? Do you believe you can learn something from anyone you meet and that God will use your everyday situations to teach you more about him and about yourself?
Motivation is your answer to the question, why do you do what you do? Your reason ends up informing how you do things. For example, if you want the truth above all else, you will be willing to believe others know more than you. When you read the scriptures searching for truth, you will pray to ask God to guide you, and you will stop and pursue your questions every time you read something you don’t understand. When it comes to pondering why you do what you do, it is absolutely essential to be earnest, sincere, and honest. Almost all of our deviations from truth come from dishonesty about why we are doing what we do and not doing what we don’t do.
Time is the answer to how long you do what you do. What percentage of your discretionary time do you spend searching for truth? What do you do when you have a free minute?
Types of truth
There are three kinds of truth: additional truth, expanding truth, and replacement truth.
Additional truth is the easiest to perceive and receive. It is new information that does not affect anything you presently believe. Most things taught in most formal settings (school, church, etc.) are additional truth.
Expanding truth is information that is adjacent to what you presently believe. It may indirectly affect what you presently believe, because it will add complexity to your beliefs, and complex systems may change radically from the adjustment of their conditions. This type of information is rarely taught in church, because most churches teach truth as fixed and unchanging, but sometimes you will encounter it in advanced educational institutions.
Replacement truth replaces what you presently believe. It is nearly impossible to find this type of truth in a church (as it would imply that the lay member has learned more than the credentialed leaders), and it is very rare to find this in any educational setting (even in science research, where this is the alleged objective).
Replacement truth is the hardest to perceive and receive, yet is the most beneficial because it provides the most extensive movement toward higher truth. Humans are nearly universally resistant to replacement truth, and those that obtain it are almost certain to be labeled heretics by their peers, no matter the setting.
We tend to think that if we have a witness of a truth, or have seen positive fruits from it, there is no possibility that another perspective on the same issue could be more correct. Spiritual law, like natural law, is progressive. In science, a theory’s ability to explain past observations does not guarantee it can explain all future observations. This is just as much the case in spiritual matters. In fact, spiritual truths might be more likely to be superseded by higher truth, given that religions tend to deteriorate. For example, the Lord Jesus not only taught the Pharisees truths higher than the law of Moses, but he also corrected the incorrect traditions erroneously taught as part of the law of Moses. The Pharisees refused to receive higher truth, and as a result ended up more wicked than if they had never met Jesus. God can reveal truth, and he can reveal higher truth.
Choosing what to search for
You have limited time to dedicate to the search of truth. What do you focus on?
Imagine for a moment that you had a treasure map in front of you. The map leads you to a trove worth untold millions. The only trouble is, someone decided to glue a sheet of postage stamps to the face of the map. Since the map is old and quite fragile, the cost to have a document expert remove each stamp is prohibitively expensive.
Since you have a limited amount of money, you have to choose very carefully which postage stamps to remove. You could all at once randomly select as many stamps as you could afford to remove and then see what you can interpolate about the still hidden parts of the map. But what happens if you randomly select the area of the map that is blank, or some part of the path that you probably could have guessed given the rest of the path? Clearly, a wiser approach would be to take off one square at a time, and hope that each new square gives you enough information to make a more informed choice about which stamp to remove next. This technique is used in real world situations, and is called active learning.
Learning truth is a lot like active learning. Suppose that the document represents all truth. The stamps are the veil of ignorance. The process of removing the veil comes through revelation, which has an exceedingly high cost of praying, knocking, asking, searching, studying, and obedience through sacrifice.
Revelation is a sublime process. In a flash, God can show you something as short and simple as where you left your car keys, or something as grand and complete as the vision of the entire history and future of the world. Revelation almost always comes, however, line upon line or piece by piece. These packets of information light up a small section of your understanding of the map. Like any sort of lantern, the light is brightest at its center, but radiates in decreasing intensity in all directions. When truth is revealed via revelation, it always casts light on surrounding or connected themes.
All revelation is not equal in the amount of light contained therein. The light is of varying brightness. A vision of heaven would bring with it much more certainty than an impression of feelings. A voice heard in answer to a direct question would be clearer than a vague feeling in response to the same.
A disciple’s understanding of truth is like a satellite picture of a town at night. There would be various sources of light of various intensities in various locations, piercing the otherwise uniform darkness. Those lights would combine and overlap in some locations, and other locations would remain completely dark. A disciple must always search for more light and truth. However, God grants both in his own time and way, even when we are living according to that which we already possess. This means that disciples must operate on an incomplete picture. This is where active learning comes in.
We must all choose what to ask the Lord; what knowledge to invest the most time in seeking. For instance, we know that we can receive spiritual gifts if we seek them. However, all spiritual gifts are not of equal worth. Our specific situations can add to the significance of some gifts and take away from the significance of others. Knowledge is the same. We have a finite amount of time and effort to exert in learning God’s mysteries.
More important than prioritization is understanding the need to interpolate. Since the reception of light and truth is an ongoing process, we all find ourselves in situations where we do not have a revealed direction, despite living worthily and asking God fervently. This is the purpose of interpolation. We look at our nighttime satellite image and we try our best to guess what lurks in the shadows, based on what we can see in the city lights. Undoubtedly, we will sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes we are quite thrown when someone, especially someone in authority, says something or acts in a way that we know is contrary to what has been revealed to us. We ought to make more allowance for such, realizing that mistakes are, in fact, quite a necessary part of the gospel. Also, that mistakes, per se, may not be mistakes at all, but simply lower resolution truth.
Viewing our understanding of truth as an active learning problem helps us have pity on ourselves and others when beliefs are declared which, in hindsight, were not as wise or heaven-sent as previously thought. Such can be written off as a side effect of doctrinal interpolation or lack of resolution. In either case, such is not an evidence of lack of revelation, but simply a natural consequence of the process of obtaining it. Likewise, this view of truth helps those called to positions of spiritual stewardship to be reticent and careful in claiming new revelation. Revelation is sacred, and not to be inferred when someone’s own best wisdom is the source of a declaration. If the Lord declared not to teach without the Spirit, what would he say about claiming something is revelation without the Spirit? Such caution will prevent a host of problems including the disaffection of the believing when they learn that what they were told was revelation is false, or, worse yet, was obtained through earthly and not heavenly means.
Sources of truth
The Lord said: “And again, he that receiveth the word of truth, doth he receive it by the Spirit of truth or some other way?” (D&C 50:19) Light comes from God, but it is delivered within you. It projects into your heart and mind from inside of you. You may have experienced this when you attended a sermon where ideas came to your heart and mind that were different than what the speaker was saying.
When we learn, it is not through receiving some external teaching, but through perceiving and receiving the reaction of the inner light to the external catalyst. “For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.” (2 Nephi 32:5)
There is no reason that this gift should be limited to settings and topics that we regard as “religious,” as such boundaries are artificial. God makes no such distinction between religious and practical things:
34 Wherefore, verily I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal; neither any man, nor the children of men; neither Adam, your father, whom I created.
35 Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself; and I gave unto him commandment, but no temporal commandment gave I unto him, for my commandments are spiritual; they are not natural nor temporal, neither carnal nor sensual. (D&C 29)
While God uses messengers and experiences to teach his children, he never fully lets go of the reins. God never expects any of us to believe anything we hear from any source without an independent confirmation through that portion of his spirit that resides in us. We are responsible not for what others say, but how much diligence we exert in searching it out, and what obedience we render to the response of our internal light in response to what we experience. He will adapt everything we hear to what we are prepared to hear—giving us customized instructions upgraded or degraded from what is being preached to match our awareness and circumstances.
One implication of this truth is that we can receive new truth from anywhere at anytime.
There are religious traditional sources of light and truth: visits from heavenly beings, visions, voices, and the like. There are sources recognized by both religious and secular people: dreams, impressions, etc.
Perhaps the richest and most overlooked source of all is everyday life. The light from God inside of you can use anything in your daily life to trigger an increase in your awareness, but it won’t often happen against your will. When we are observant of the world around us, and spend ample time in reflective meditation, we open the doors for the Lord to teach us new truth. Seemingly normal experiences in nature, at work, or in our homes can trigger an opportunity to learn deep truth.
The Lord sometimes reveals truth in obvious ways in the moment we seek it. But he often, and perhaps mostly, shows us while we are not expecting it. Because he is gracious, God does not leave us wallowing in ignorance. He directly reveals things to you out of the blue, and he intentionally places people with more light and truth than you in your life. He could do this with fire and earthquakes and neon signs, but that would require him to exercise great judgment when it is ignored or turned away from. Because he is merciful, and because he knows we will fail much more often than succeed, God typically offers us further light and truth ever so gently.
An example of this is provided in the story of the brother of Jared. In this account, the brother of Jared is commanded to build barges to cross the ocean. Because the barges are sealed, he worries about how they will have light. He approaches the Lord with 16 molten balls he had made, small enough to hold all of them in his hands at once. He asks the Lord to touch these stones to make them glow. The Lord touches each one, and in the process the brother of Jared sees one of the Lord's fingers. This shocks the brother of Jared, because he didn't realize that the Lord had the form of a man, and because he understood that seeing the Lord was something that could destroy a man because of man's impurity. The Lord graciously provided a little bit of revelation by preemptively showing the brother of Jared his finger. The brother of Jared responded by asking for more. He asked the Lord to show himself.
Perhaps the most important part of the story is very subtle:
For he had said unto him in times before, that if he would believe in him that he could show unto him all things—it should be shown unto him; therefore the Lord could not withhold anything from him, for he knew that the Lord could show him all things. (Ether 3:26)
Apparently, at some point in the past, the Lord had told the brother of Jared that if he would believe in the Lord, the Lord could show him all things. We are not given the account of how or when this happened. I would not be surprised if it was a routine, uneventful story. Yet, this small gem inside of that exchange was sufficient leverage for the brother of Jared to obtain an in-the-flesh visit of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is how the Lord usually offers us further light and truth: through slight, imperceptible exchanges that will fly right past us if we are not paying attention.
Nephi noticed and leveraged his father's prophetic dream to obtain a dream of his own. The brother of Jared leveraged the Lord's promise to show him anything to see the Lord. David leveraged the Lord's strength in helping him kill a bear and a lion to help him kill Goliath. The list goes on and on.
The bad news is that you likely miss many opportunities to acquire more light and truth on a daily basis. The good news is that God is gracious, and he will call these things to your remembrance at a later time when you are more willing to pay attention:
24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.
25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (John 14)
But there is more bad news; another chance will probably not come quickly, and it will not save you from the consequences of your not having more truth.
How to seek truth
Your belief system will determine how much truth you acquire and assimilate in this life. There are five key behaviors that will maximize your acquisition of truth:
- Reconcile to all you know.
- Search.
- Think critically.
- Be open minded.
- Share what you know whenever it could help someone.
The ideal qualities are to be open-minded, discerning, and sophisticated. You can draw a 3-d graph of these dimensions and plot where you stand on each quality. The goal is to get to the corner where open mindedness, discernment, and sophistication are maximized.
Obedience to what you know, searching, open mindedness, and sharing are interrelated traits that play off of one another, opening the gate to new truth. However, without discernment between what is valuable and what is not, you will stagnate on distractions at best, and accept detrimental ideas at worst. Critical thinking helps you filter what could be by the unavoidable constraints of reality, as those who remain in a simple mindset will never graduate to the higher order truths found in a greater awareness of the complexity of reality.
Lacking any of these things will limit your acquisition of truth. The chapters in this book will help you know what areas you can improve in and how you can change.