Recognizing your potential
The wise assume they are fools. Those with this perspective will assume that they are no smarter, wiser, diligent, or moral than those around them. While this humble perspective is required for God to teach you, it also has the ironic effect of disproving itself: the more humble you are, the less you will have to be humble about.
The person who assumes he is a fool will be made wise by God. The person who assumes he is wise will be made a fool by God. In both cases, the truth will manifest who you really are, no matter what you may think of yourself: “whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” (Matthew 23:12) It is just like Jesus taught in the parable of the rooms of honor:
8 When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;
9 And he that bade thee and him come and say to thee, Give this man place; and thou begin with shame to take the lowest room.
10 But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.
11 For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (Luke 14)
Consider this allegory: As a man ages, by default he will get fatter. This is for a mix of reasons: more responsibilities, less time, less testosterone, slower metabolism, etc. A young man who is fit by nature of his situation (high growth hormone, high testosterone, etc.) will not be exposed to the weakness of his actions until his environment changes and becomes less helpful in hiding the natural consequences of his actions. At the same time the typical man is putting on weight, the unusual man is not. The unusual man has eaten healthy and established appropriate exercise as part of his habits. Early on, it did not matter, but now it shows. If the man was born into environmental or genetic circumstances that disadvantaged his fitness compared to his peers early in life, so much the better, because in adulthood he will overtake his peers who were never blessed with the opportunity to see early on what the consequences of their actions would be in less favorable circumstances.
Paul said: “Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” (1 Corinthians 3:13) It will only be as you are exposed to more and more fire that you will realize how different you are. As you encounter more and more situations in life, and as you acquire more and more light, you will find yourself facing obstacles whose existence and benefit lay further and further outside the awareness of your peers.
If you consistently apply yourself to acquiring and assimilating all the light and truth that God offers to you, you will find dramatic changes unfolding within you day by day. Like taking successive forks in the road, you will find yourself growing further and further from the masses with each step you take. After a few years, depending on how much you’ve applied yourself, you will probably feel like a complete outsider.
After years of this, you will find, upon reflection, that you’ve been surrounded by people whom you assumed were just like you. Without exception, they have responded to your selfless sacrifices by acting very differently than you would in their place. This causes an incessant chain of disappointment and a longing for people who reciprocate the light you emit, or at least make good use of it.
The more you realize the distinctions between people like you and most people, the more effectively you will be able to serve most people without being overcome by the suffering it causes.
It is not easy to realize these distinctions, because people who bear light tend to be modest in their self-view.
Isaiah described the Lord as:
...a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2)
In Isaiah-speak, this meant that there was nothing about Jesus that was attractive to the mortal eye, in spite of his being the Son of God, made in his express image. Imagine that—the Lord’s godliness did not register on the mortal scale of greatness. It was beyond the observational capacities of flesh.
Just as the godliness of Jesus was not immediately evident to the crowds, the godliness that Jesus has planted in you may not be immediately evident to you. As you consider other people, your tendency will be to project the goodness in you to other people. You will assume that they do things for the same reasons you do, that they desire the same things you do, and that they understand the same things you do. Experience will prove otherwise.
Eventually—hopefully sooner rather than later—you will realize that you are not like everyone else. This knowledge will provide you with a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you will be relieved to understand why your experiences with others have played out the way they have. On the other hand, you will exchange one weight for another, because you will learn that some of the deep longings you have will be even less likely to be fulfilled than you thought.
In short, you have no idea who you really are. For now, that is a tremendous blessing. If you knew who you really were, you would instantly be exposed to the weight of your calling, which invariably includes a kind of abject loneliness that none but those who experience it can understand, and that would be a heavy burden you are not prepared to bear.
There are lessons that you need to learn—skills and character traits you need to develop—before you can gain a better idea of who you are and what you are capable of.
Your invisible sacrifice
The more light you have, the less often people will recognize it, because our perception of light goes only just beyond what we possess, and most people possess very little light. But even less perceived is the work that went into getting that extra light. Every increment of additional light takes far more effort to obtain. A little light takes a little effort to get, and a little more light takes a lot more effort to get. Those with only a little light are absolutely ignorant of what it takes to get a great deal of light. Like a toddler does not understand what it takes to be financially successful, those with little light literally cannot imagine, and therefore cannot appreciate, the sacrifice acquisition of significant light requires. It lies wholly outside of their awareness.
When I was a graduate student, I spent years running an extensive experiment on one of the most advanced supercomputers in the world. When I presented my work, no one cared about all the extra work my project required compared to a normal graduate project. I had to train myself on how the supercomputer worked, I had to write complex code to dynamically chop my problem into the sub-jobs the supercomputer could process, I had to write my own system for monitoring the status of jobs and resending ones that failed, and I had to merge the results together. All of this was on top of the actual problem I was solving. In the end, by my calculations, I did at least four times the amount of work in a normal graduate project. And yet, when I presented my work, I got the same amount of credit as if I had done a normal project. It was just a necessary part of the process because I had chosen a much more difficult problem than most do.
The Lord gives the same approbation to both the servant who was given five talents and the servant who was given two talents: “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” (Matthew 25:23) Both doubled what they were given, and both were given the same reward, though one gained far more than the other in absolute terms. The Lord taught the same lesson in the parable of the laborers who were each paid a penny even though they worked for different lengths of time:
1 For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.
2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.
3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,
4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.
5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.
6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?
7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.
8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
9 And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.
10 But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.
11 And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,
12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.
13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.
15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?
16 So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen. (Matthew 20)
No one is going to care what you went through to obtain the light you share. No one is going to appreciate what you did to get it, because your experience lies outside of their awareness. The only ones who will understand are those who have gone through the same experience and have the same amount of light. By definition, there are fewer and fewer of those the more light you obtain.
And just what is it like to obtain a great deal of light? You will know what it was like for John to stand at the foot of the cross. You will know what it was like for Mary to anoint the feet of the Lord with the ointment, her tears, and her hair. You will know what it was like for the apostles to stand before the resurrected Christ, and to touch the holes in his hands. You will know what it was like for Job to have sat in ashes and sackcloth, contemplating whether God actually loved him. You will know what is was like for Jeremiah to be suspended in a cistern of filth for his faith in God. You will know what is was like for the prophets of old to arise early, prepare and kill an innocent animal they had loved and raised from birth, burning it while pouring their hearts out to God. You will know what it was like for Joseph to be left in a dungeon in a foreign land, his experience repeatedly punctuated by externally flowing rewards for his internally unjust life. You will know what it was like for Jacob to crawl towards the Lord who appeared to him in glory.
You will know what it is like to lose a spouse. You will know what it is like to watch your child die and be powerless to help. You will know what it is like to have a terminal illness. You will know what it is like to be homeless and destitute. You will know what it is like to starve to death and to freeze to death.
In short, you will contemplate all the vicissitudes of many lives, all in one short mortal life. Your experience will be limited not by the time you have here, but your diligence in seeking God and your obedience in obeying him.
How is this possible in a single mortal life? How was Jesus able to experience all the suffering that exists here in a single mortal life? Jesus experienced many of these things and more besides in the same literal way that we would. But he experienced everything else through revelation while in the body. While you are on this earth, revelation provides a means by which you can experience a great deal more than the physical circumstances of your life would allow. This is the means by which Jesus experienced all the pain and suffering that mortality provides.
The Lord's suffering in Gethsemane was not the first time he had prayed for the sins of the world. The cross was not the first time he felt his Father had forsaken him. These were only the last time these things occurred. Though they were also the worst, they were only incrementally so, due to the increased awareness he possessed compared to former times. This does not make what he went through in those final moments any less terrible or worthy of awe, but quite the opposite. The Lord Jesus spent his whole life pouring his life out unto death, his experiences in that final day were the crescendo of an ever-increasing symphony of selfless love and solitary suffering.
Likewise, there is nothing in this world that you can’t experience while here provided you have sufficient trust in God for him to show you. On the one hand, that is something for you to prepare yourself for. On the other, it should give you pause when you encounter someone with more light than you. You should wonder how many of these crosses they are invisibly carrying.
A recurring theme in superhero movies is the weight of anonymity. Light bearers endure great sacrifice in behalf of people who never realize what it is like and can never adequately appreciate the service they are providing. When it comes to bearing light and truth, your peers will never recognize your sacrifice or who you really are. They will never be able to sympathize with what you go through. They will never be able to commiserate with you. They will never appreciate you.
Your unfruitful labor
The kingdom of God is within you. It is there, waiting to be activated through your adoption of the behavior that does so. If one desires to have heaven within themselves, they must act at all times as if they were in heaven. This does not mean obedience to a static laundry list of commandments, though perfect, honest, earnest obedience to God as far as you understand him is required. This—incidentally—is the fulfillment of the first great commandment, to love God with all your heart, might, mind, and strength.
The second great commandment is to love your fellow man as yourself. There are at least two ways to gain insight into the meaning of this second commandment. The first is to treat everyone as you would like to be treated. This means, for example, that if you see a hungry man, you will imagine how you would feel if you were hungry, and then spend your resources as you would in that case.
A perhaps more insightful interpretation is to recognize that, if you live according to the kingdom of heaven, most people are in fact not like you. This means that as you spend your resources—your time, talent, and compassion—on others, you will find they almost never take advantage of them. You will find that your effort in recruiting and expending these resources far exceeds the benefit these people derive from it.
Almost without exception, they will not use what you have given to improve their lot, nor will they appreciate what you have done to provide it. In many cases, they won’t even recognize that you are doing anything at all.
To keep the second great commandment, and to fully embody the kingdom of God within you, you must act as if these people were also citizens of heaven. You must act as if the subjects of your kindness would react the same way you would to the resources offered, in spite of your knowledge that they will not, so long as doing so does not harm them:
5 The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.
6 I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.
7 For the Lord God will help me; therefore shall I not be confounded: therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed. (Isaiah 50)
The default state of man is condemnation: “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18)
The condemnation occurs because the default state of man is to flee from the light:
19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3)
If you had a terminal disease, would you rather know about it or persist in ignorance? What if it were curable? We are all spiritually terminally ill, and there is a cure. Unfortunately, no one wants the cure.
What person do you know that runs to the light, that prefers to understand that they have flaws that they must fix and misunderstandings that they must correct in order to experience greater happiness? Instead, mankind prefers to persist in the way things are because they erroneously believe that it is more comfortable than seeking, discovering, and applying all truth, wherever it is found, and no matter the implications.
While intentional ignorance will allow vacuous comfort to persist for a time, it will always be ripped away from you, causing far more pain, suffering, and insecurity than you would have had by embracing the truth. A person who chooses to ignore the alarms signaling a sinking ship may avoid the discomfort of finding a life boat, but they will suffer more than those who listened when they find themselves forced to confront the rising water, and may be condemned to drowning if the water has made it impossible to escape their cabin.
It is not possible to avoid all suffering in life, but it is possible to limit suffering to that which causes growth. Those who live their lives in this way are so few that they are rarer than diamonds.
Men and women today do not seek out light and truth, and when it is presented to them, they hate the person who has brought it. Your heart will be broken by the preventable suffering that you see in ever-increasing quantities as you gain awareness.
When you give yourself completely to God, your heart turns completely to your fellowmen, and it will break into a thousand pieces as you truly comprehend their depraved state and realize that you are absolutely powerless to help them.
You will give everything you have to help them. You will intercede with God on their behalf, with intense and repeated prayers. You will study and pray to know how to help persuade them. You will set aside all the comforts of life that you have earned to instead focus on their needs. And, in spite of all of this, you will fail to make a difference almost (and perhaps altogether) every single time.
The more light and truth you have, the less you can do about it because the very truth that enables you to help others also alienates you from them. Those who are honest and open-minded—those that would listen to light and truth—do not need anyone to give it to them, because they will have already obtained it from God.
A truth bearer has the unpleasant job of paying the price to give another chance to those who do not deserve it, knowing full well that it will be extremely rare for someone who hasn’t bothered listening to God before to listen to them now.
Those who are not honest and open-minded desperately need the help of others to bring them light and truth, but they won't hear it.
Those that most need the light God has given you are also those who are least likely to receive it. The negative consequences of their refusal to turn to the light wash upon them like the lapping waves of the sea, and you are powerless to stop them.
Then, you will realize what Jeremiah felt like when he weighed the outcome of all his suffering in behalf of others. You will realize why Isaiah had second thoughts about his mission. You will realize what Solomon felt like after spending a lifetime acquiring wisdom, only to realize that he could not impart it to others against their will—a will that, if properly exercised, would be capable to receive it all without Solomon, anyway. You will understand why Abraham was a spiritual stranger in a strange land, and was indescribably lonely his whole life. You will understand how nothing in this world made Jesus' life worth living—that only his love of the Father could have motivated him to come and complete his mission on this earth. And it will be the same with you.
How you will wish those around you would repent! How you will wish they would adopt radical truthfulness and self-honesty! How you will wish they would cultivate a willingness to believe in what they hadn’t before considered! How you will wish they could see the value of light, and run into it, rather than running from it!
You won’t be able to turn to others
You have within you the mustard seed of godliness, and it has not yet grown into the large tree that it has the potential to become. The degree to which you lack obedience and/or diligence will absolutely limit how large that tree can become. But let us suppose for a moment that you have extensively developed these attributes. There remains one significant barrier to your growth in light and truth: how lonely are you willing to be?
As you acquire more and more truth, more and more people will let you down, spitefully use you, and persecute you.
There isn’t a person in your life who is incapable of bitterly betraying you at your weakest moment. Job’s three friends were his closest, tried confidants. Jesus said a man’s worst enemies would be those of his own household (see Matthew 10:36).
Each time they betray you, you will forgive them. Each time you forgive them, they will do it again. Each time you forgive them, it will be harder than all the other times. And you just keep going.
The lonely reality of spiritual intelligence is vividly illustrated in the scriptures. Consider the experiences of Nephi. In response to his prayer regarding a vision his father Lehi had purported to have, God granted him an awesome, long, intense vision, which included seeing all the bad choices and subsequent consequences of his brothers and their posterity, and his own posterity. Upon exiting the vision, he found himself back in his father's tent. And what did he return to?
1 And it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had been carried away in the Spirit, and seen all these things, I returned to the tent of my father.
2 And it came to pass that I beheld my brethren, and they were disputing one with another concerning the things which my father had spoken unto them.
3 For he truly spake many great things unto them, which were hard to be understood, save a man should inquire of the Lord; and they being hard in their hearts, therefore they did not look unto the Lord as they ought. (1 Nephi 15)
They were bickering about and against the breadcrumbs of truth their father had previously given them. Instead of trying to experience the same things Lehi experienced, his brothers were arguing about it with one another. This filled Nephi with sorrow. He had been shown the destiny of his brothers, and now he was seeing it unfold right before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Nephi lamented, “I was overcome because of my afflictions, for I considered that mine afflictions were great above all, because of the destruction of my people, for I had beheld their fall.” (1 Nephi 15:5) Imagine being present among his brothers while carrying the burden of knowing exactly what would come to them.
This burden of carrying a hidden and heavy spiritual weight while still carrying on a normal interaction with normal mortal existence is the challenge of all who cultivate a strong relationship with God. Nephi’s brothers had no idea what he was going through—they couldn’t.
After Nephi overcame his feelings and mobilized, he tried to help them ask God. His brothers decided to ask him instead. He gave them a good deal of truth, but reread his response to his brothers. Laman and Lemuel asked Nephi about the vision. Nephi did the same to God. Contrast God's answer to Nephi with Nephi's answer to Laman and Lemuel. Consider what Laman and Lemuel knew and what Nephi knew at the conclusion of each answer. Laman and Lemuel knew hardly anything. Why didn’t Nephi reveal more? Nephi obeyed the law revealed in Alma 12, that God can reveal truth to us only inasmuch as we have heed and diligence—inasmuch as we desire more and have obeyed what we have received. Laman and Lemuel not only had a poor track record of obedience, they also weren't even really paying attention to Nephi's answer to their questions. Nephi dropped clues that he knew far more than he was saying throughout his responses. If you reread his answers and compare them to his vision, you'll see. Instead of asking follow-on questions to get more, Laman and Lemuel simply ignored the clues, and went on in their ignorance.
This is the common experience of those who develop a relationship with God. They are constantly surrounded by those who have no clue of the experiences they’ve had and the things God has shown them. This makes it very hard to find support.
We know—well, at least we say we know—that we ought not rely upon our fellow men and women for support; that we ought to only rely on God. But do we really believe it? What is our first response to trouble? Is it to reach out to or acknowledge God, or do we reach out to our significant other or best friend or parent?
The problem with your peers is that they, being like everyone else, will see you as just like everyone else. They will not be able to sympathize with what you face. They will offer what they would do in a situation they can only imagine is like their own—not what you ought to do in yours.
John said it is common for the world to fail to recognize the value of those who are faithful to God:
1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. (1 John 3)
Your friends and family will fail to see the good in you. They will let you down when you need them the most. They will interpret your good as evil. Provided you continue obtaining light and truth faster than they do, they will invariably eventually reject and despise you. Jesus said:
34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. (Matthew 10)
The closer to God you become, the less often people will recognize the good in you, and the more most will hate you. They may even try to kill you, as they did almost all the prophets and the Lord Jesus himself.
The further your window of truth is from the average person, the more people will flee from you. The Lord, who had the most truth of all, was abandoned by every single person he knew and trusted in this life. Even his most faithful disciples abandoned him when he needed them the most.
66 From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? (John 6)
The loneliness that accompanies light and truth can only be diminished in two ways: either you develop a stronger and stronger relationship with God, or you dull the pain by embracing what you know is a lie through trusting in the flesh. Examples of the latter would include relying on a spouse or friends for comfort, or indulging in activities for comfort.
Part of acquiring light is moving away from the need for recognition or appreciation or understanding. Without a stark willingness to become lonelier than you ever thought was possible, you will not be able to acquire more light.
Normal people feel loneliness from time to time. When that feeling strikes, they run to the comfort of their many idols of carnal security. This is the allure of carnal security: an escape from things as they really are.
Carnal security is the degree to which we derive feelings of security from anything but God and the truth he has revealed to us. The root of “carnal” means “flesh.” Carnal security is, literally, trust in the flesh. Trust in the flesh is deriving security from the things of and people in this world. It implies trusting in ideas contrary to the ideas of the spirit, or that which God has revealed to you to be true.
The degree to which we derive security from the world is the degree to which we do not trust God or look to him for our security.
The devil has great success at increasing our reliance on the world.
21 And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.
22 And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none— and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance. (2 Nephi 28)
The problem with carnal security is that it is peace based on an illusion, and the bill always comes due. Carnal security may delay acknowledgement of the truth, but it does so at a great penalty. It is always better to face the truth sooner rather than later. It is always worse to delay what you know is right, even if it hurts, because it will hurt more later, and you can’t hide the truth (or from it) forever.
Those who trust God will progress from moments of loneliness to spans of loneliness. Then they will transition from spans of loneliness to a majority feeling of loneliness with moments of connectedness. They will eventually end up where they are always lonely. This may seem very negative. It isn’t. Though the righteous are lonely, they are not alone. They are members of the assembly of the Firstborn. They are peers with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and many others. Their company far exceeds the quality of the companionship that is possible with the general population.
When you obtain sacred loneliness, you not only have the companionship of the church of the Firstborn and the security of knowing you are walking the same strait and narrow path designed by Christ and walked by all just men made perfect, you also have overcome the illusion of connectedness indulged in by the masses here on earth. All of their connectedness is actually an illusion. It is fleeting, and it will fail when they need it the most. For evidence of this assertion, attend a normal funeral, or simply open your eyes to the frequent let down experiences between normal friends. It turns out you aren't any lonelier than anyone else, the only difference is that you no longer subscribe to the illusion that there are other humans that can comfort you, whereas they haven’t figured that out yet.
The more truth you have, the lonelier you will be. There is a large void between trusting in the flesh and being comforted by God. We each have to walk through that void if we want to come up to perfect faith in God and everything that brings. You have to navigate through the awkward place where you have left behind the world, but where your tremendous thirst for God has not been quenched. There is no other way.
The more you trust God, the more he will prove to you that your trust is well-placed. He does this by showing you how transient and unreliable the people and things in this world are. As you gain more light and truth, your awareness of the evils of this world increases, and you realize just how fleeting things are here.
Lose yourself, and you will truly find yourself (see Matthew 10:39). You will find that everything about you is but dross in the light of Christ (see Daniel 10:8), and he will give you his own heart and character to replace what is broken and missing inside of you—which is everything inside of you.
Relying upon God only
God is there for the righteous. But his companionship is not always perceptible. It is a lot easier to turn to your neighbor than it is to cry to God. Your neighbor responds right away, and you can speak with him face to face whenever you want. Don’t succumb to this temptation. Although your neighbor will try to answer you with something helpful as soon as you want it, he will not be able to comprehend what you are going through, to benefit from what you know, or provide any advice to you. It is much better to rely on God only.
Imagine for a second that you were the Savior during New Testament times. To whom could you turn? Who could understand what you were going through? Who could provide you with advice that would be worth hearing? None but the Father. And, contrary to popular opinion, Jesus did not have a special hotline to God. He had the same tools we have, and they worked in the same ways for him that they do for us.
While Jesus knelt and prayed, and sweat came out of his pores, his disciples—those closest to him—slept. Those most aware of what Jesus was going through were not at all aware of what Jesus was going through.
The Lord cried for the Father while on the cross. He asked why the Father had abandoned him. Clearly, Jesus did not feel the support of the Father at that moment, and we have no reason to believe that this sort of thing hadn’t happened before.
God has great things in store for every person that loves and obeys him:
Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance. (Alma 26:22)
You might think that sounds exciting and exhilarating. Actually, experiencing this description will quickly disabuse you of that illusion.
Can you even imagine what it would be like to know things that no one else knows? Realize that the only reason others would not know what you know is because it lies outside of what they can perceive given their heed and obedience to God. No one will believe you, so you can’t share what you are taught. Because you can’t share what you are taught, no one can sympathize with how you feel, and you have no one to talk to about it. You will feel that you are alone. You will realize what God meant when he said it is not good for man to be alone.
The hard truth is that those with the most light are the most lonely. Those who venture further and further in search of light will find themselves needing comfort and companionship more than ever before in their lives, drifting away from the experience and comprehension of their mortal peers while still acutely separated from feeling the consolation of divine approval. They will feel absolutely alone.
But they are not alone. Their companionship comes from the righteous men and women who walked the same path in times past. Few find this path, it is true, but some do.
Abraham walked this path, and his experiences can inform those who follow in his footsteps. Abraham’s household had at least hundreds of people who believed and trusted Abraham on some level, having chosen to live with him in spite of not being related to him. Knowing this, it might be tempting to imagine these people providing support to him. Yet, this was not the case. Abraham was constantly giving, but no one in his circle was able to provide what he lacked.
Abraham had leaned into his life time after time, constantly enveloped by afflictions which he suffered for and due to others. His wife let him down and proved incapable of comprehending the mystery of godliness with him. His second wife let him down. He had to live through the pain of banishing her. His son Ishmael was also dismissed. Lot had let him down. All these people—for whom Abraham had sacrificed so much—had utterly rejected the light and truth Abraham had worked so hard and sacrificed so much to obtain. All they had to do was accept what he freely offered, but they would not. They were so narrow in their desire for light and truth that they could have been saturated in the dim light offered by any normal man. But Abraham was no normal man.
Why was it so hard for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? People think it was hard because it was his son and he loved him. That is true. But Abraham already had a son (Ishmael), and that son was not sacrificed. Isaac was a child of promise, which meant more to Abraham than a son through whom he would bear grandchildren (again, Ishmael did that). Abraham’s promise was not one of mere seed, but of seed of promise. He was promised not only a son, but a son who would be capable of using the light and truth that Abraham had worked so hard to accumulate. Isaac would be someone with whom he could share the depth of his love.
The greatest joy a person can have in life is to give away the light and truth they worked so hard to obtain. Isaiah says that the Lord’s servant’s soul will “be satisfied” when he sees the growth of those he toils and sacrifices for:
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53)
How old was Isaac when Abraham took him up the mountain to kill him? We don't know. But we do know he was old enough that Abraham could tell that this was a person who was capable of assimilating the light and truth Abraham had acquired. He was capable of appreciating everything Abraham had become, and Abraham could see that his son would become so much more because of Abraham's suffering than he could be on his own. Abraham's effort in lifting the curse from his father's household—his successful recovery of the path from a start steeped in idolatry—would not be in vain. His repeated trust in God through the fires of losing Sarah twice and having to send away Hagar and Ishmael, and all his other trials would be worthwhile in what he could transmit to Isaac.
So how did Abraham muster the strength to give away what, in his old age, would have been the only opportunity of finding consolation in another, and why did God ask him to do it?
Abraham trusted God. The cycle he had watched play out repeatedly over his long life was that his feeling lonely did not mean God was not there. Without exception, God had proven trustworthy time after time. After each trial, Abraham learned how what he went through was an example of God’s love for him, even if it wasn’t obvious while he was going through it. By the time Isaac came along, Abraham trusted God so much that he felt he would be ok if he continued without the earthly companionship he had longed for his whole life.
Here is the key to conquering the same test in your own life: God will not grant you the kind of companionship you seek until you have proven that you trust him enough not to need it. It would be unloving of God to give you that experience before you are ready for it, because in doing so you would be tempted to put your relationship with another person above your relationship with him, which would harm you.
When you will finally find companionship
In God, and in God alone, the faithful will find the fulfillment of every righteous desire. Their expanded awareness will reveal that the desires they had that they thought were for a person or a thing were actually misplaced, that these desires were a call towards God and a foretaste of what he alone can give.
All the righteous, if they continue faithful, will arrive at the point where their faith turns into knowledge, where their trust in God blossoms into a relationship with him. The day will come when he personally wipes the tears from their eyes—not in an empty gesture, but by explaining why perfect love dictated that it had to be exactly how it was.
The Lord said:
60 ...As I live, even so will I come in the last days, in the days of wickedness and vengeance, to fulfil the oath which I have made unto you concerning the children of Noah;
61 And the day shall come that the earth shall rest, but before that day the heavens shall be darkened, and a veil of darkness shall cover the earth; and the heavens shall shake, and also the earth; and great tribulations shall be among the children of men, but my people will I preserve;
62 And righteousness will I send down out of heaven; and truth will I send forth out of the earth, to bear testimony of mine Only Begotten; his resurrection from the dead; yea, and also the resurrection of all men; and righteousness and truth will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out mine elect from the four quarters of the earth, unto a place which I shall prepare, an Holy City, that my people may gird up their loins, and be looking forth for the time of my coming; for there shall be my tabernacle, and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem.
63 And the Lord said unto Enoch: Then shalt thou and all thy city meet them there, and we will receive them into our bosom, and they shall see us; and we will fall upon their necks, and they shall fall upon our necks, and we will kiss each other;
64 And there shall be mine abode, and it shall be Zion, which shall come forth out of all the creations which I have made; and for the space of a thousand years the earth shall rest. (Moses 7)
Why will they weep? Because these people have a mutual comprehension of the mystery of godliness. They have trodden the winepress of affliction, which is the only way to mine out God’s light and truth.
This experience only comes to people who have come to the point where they keep all of God's commandments. This only happens when people who have already given their entire heart to God are repeatedly shown parts they actually have yet to give, until there is nothing left. This only happens when people who have already reconciled all that they are to their best idea of what God is like are repeatedly shown things they didn't know about him, until they have acquired and assimilated the character of God to the greatest degree possible in this life. This is the state reached by those who have placed everything on the altar, and climbed onto it themselves as the final sacrifice. These are just men made perfect. They overcome all things. It is only then that they can see eye to eye with others who have done the same, and their mutual comprehension of the mystery of godliness produces unfathomable joy, unreachable by any who have not done the same.
This is what it means to acquire light and truth, and will be the state of all who endure this search to the end.