Paul said that “our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:29) What is that fire? It is his maintenance of his character in the midst of a full awareness of reality. The fire that surrounds God is his glory. “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.” (D&C 93:36)
What is the fire that surrounds God? It is chaos, unfiltered, uncontained, unexplained, unbounded. Life is going to grind you up no matter what. Your choices can sometimes limit the grinding to certain types, but you will be ground up no matter what. Your real choice is not whether you will suffer, but for what purpose the suffering will be. The glory of God includes all things that are present before him, including the many things that by his grace elude us. When you look upon God in his glory, the seemingly endless depths of chaos are before you. In him they are ordered, but without perfect faith, you can't leverage your trust in him to endure even a temporary awareness of what you can't yet handle.
We will find ourselves exposed to the entire awareness prescribed for our present scope. We cannot stop that from happening. This is judgment—where we see things as they really are up to that point. In that day, it will be too late to prepare ourselves to endure that awareness, to comprehend it. Mortality is required for us to discover and assimilate the principles necessary to overcome the things pertaining to this scope. The only thing we can do in that day is suffer from an exposure to an awareness that exceeds our comprehension.
Have you ever wondered why the presence of God and the pains of hell are both described as fire? They are the same fire! The Psalmist wrote: “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” (Psalm 139:8) The fires of hell and the fires that surround God are one and the same. The difference is not of what they comprise, but the capacity of the individual to endure them and maintain the character of God in spite of them—including happiness and joy.
The difference between heaven and hell is merely the condition of those who abide in it. Those in hell are exposed to the same degree of truth as God dwells in, but because they did not acquire the requisite knowledge of dealing with it, they suffer, while God emanates glory.
God knows things as they really are. He has a perfect character. The glory of God is maintenance of a perfect character despite an awareness of what is. God can endure the chaos that exists outside of the bubble of this mortal sphere. We cannot.
God's knowledge, his light and truth, his fire, is the state that he has attained through ordering the chaos that exists at our scope. It is the “law” by which he is sanctified. What does it mean that Jesus Christ has overcome all things? It means he experienced the entire breadth of awareness here, and still maintained perfect godly character. To overcome the world, we must acquire sufficiently many and sufficiently functional principles to maintain godly character in any situation pertaining to the scope of mortality.
The amount of glory you acquire in mortality will determine whether you can bear the weight of all knowledge pertaining to this sphere. All corruption is devoured in this fire—all beliefs that are incorrect or incomplete compared to this level of truth. The only way to endure the fire is to acquire sufficient light and truth that you can withstand it. We live in a world of illusion. The spirit of God reveals things as they really are (see Jacob 4:13). As he reveals to us what he knows, we are subjected to what was previously unknown to us. The challenge is to grow in our capacity to persevere in obedience to God and trust in him amidst ever-increasing levels of chaos.
Heaven and hell are literal places. Where they are, though, is far less important than how they are. As has been said, a righteous man could make heaven of any hell, and a devilish man would make hell of any heaven.
Heaven and hell are defined by the capacity of a person to endure reality. Those in heaven have developed a capacity to endure and live according to a certain degree of reality. Hell is the state of individuals who have not developed the capacity to endure the certain degree of reality to which they are exposed. This state is occupied by two different types of people. One type has not developed the capacity because they are not aware of that degree of reality to which they are eventually exposed. The other may be aware of some portion of that reality, but they choose to ignore it until they are unwillingly made to face it.
At judgment, we will be exposed to the full breadth and depth of knowledge of things pertaining to this existence. Those who have developed an awareness of the full scope of truth pertaining to our existence will experience incomparable peace and happiness. Those whose awareness falls short of this will experience incomparable suffering.
There is opposition in all things. Just as you have no idea what good things await you in increased truth (see 1 Corinthians 2:9), likewise you have no idea how awful the awful things are that await you. One characteristic of the unknown is obviously that we don’t know what it contains. What makes greater levels of awareness unbearable for the ill-prepared? It is a combination of the revelation of a greater and more painful unknown with a revelation of much of what you think is right being wrong, real being illusion.
Some specific examples of this happen when, for instance, you find out that a church you and your family believed in for generations and made much sacrifice for is a cult. Or, when your spouse of 25 years leaves you and says they never loved you. Or, when you are suddenly fired from your job after being promoted the day before. Or, when your 6 year old son withers away from cancer.
Now, imagine everything like this happening to you, all at once. This may seem ridiculous, but that is what it is like to have “all things before you” as all who possess telestial degree glory do. The feelings these experiences create are all revelations of a degree of trust in God that is lower than the telestial dispensation of truth requires. If the fulness of telestial awareness were revealed to you, it would be as if all these things were happening to you, all the time.
The pains of hell come as you’re shown that reality is far worse than you thought, reality is far less secure than you thought, your greatest desires are impossible, and your greatest joys were an illusion.
Reality is far worse than you thought. But it is immeasurably better to have a more accurate picture of what is out there than it is to be brutally exposed to it at random intervals, causing extreme anguish.
Reality is far less secure than you thought. But it is immeasurably better to develop a perspective where you aren’t relying on the unreliable than it is to lean on an illusion, only to have it fail you at the worst times.
Your greatest desires are impossible, and your greatest joys were an illusion. But, what is possible is immeasurably better, because it is real, you can actually have it, and it is far greater than anything you can presently imagine, eclipsing any illusory joy you have ever felt. A desire may be misplaced, and therefore an illusion, but the joy you feel towards it is real, and it has a worthy target. Put otherwise, every desire you have will be fulfilled—although it will be fulfilled in ways beyond your present comprehension—if you trust in God and seek a fullness of his intelligence. “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.” (Matthew 19:29) “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9)
The only way to endure these things is to develop much stronger trust in God. The Lord said: “And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more.” (D&C 78:19) What does it mean to receive all things with thankfulness? It means to trust God and seek and submit to all things he is willing to give you. Not the things that you seek, which are lusty desires of this world and the product of your limited awareness, but the things that you realize are beyond your awareness. You write him a blank check. This is such a fundamental concept in the gospel that it is, essentially, the baptismal covenant, the central ordinance of Christianity. You profess that God knows everything, you know nothing, and you subscribe to whatever he might tell you to do or not to do, for the rest of your life, at all times and in all places.