The Lord offers us escape from prison:
10 Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron;
11 Because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most High:
12 Therefore he brought down their heart with labour; they fell down, and there was none to help.
13 Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses.
14 He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder.
15 Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
16 For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder. (Psalm 107)
The gospel is the light. But men turn away from it because they would rather listen to the voice of everyone else, crying with unified cacophony: there is no darkness, there is no prison, there is no light, there is nothing better:
28 And when the times of the Gentiles is come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my gospel;
29 But they receive it not; for they perceive not the light, and they turn their hearts from me because of the precepts of men. (D&C 45)
The default behavior of mankind is to turn away from the light—to turn away from something better. This is a pattern as old as time. In Moses’ day, the children of Israel constantly turned away from a blessed life far better than the Egyptian culture they came from. Perhaps no example is more succinct than that of the brass serpent.
The Lord used this example as he taught that individuals, by default, are not interested in rising above where they currently stand:
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 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.
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)
When the children of Israel were suffering from the poisonous snake bites, Moses crafted a brass serpent, representing Jesus, and mounted it on a staff. Those who looked up to the brass serpent lived. Those who did not died. The brass is symbolic. Brass is purified in fire. The staff is symbolic. As Jesus was lifted up, so will all mankind be lifted up to the Father.
The snakes came whether the people wanted to deal with them or not. Chaos will come into your life whether you want to deal with it or not. The choice is not whether the chaos will come, but what you will do about knowing it will. Whether you are enveloped in chaos presently, or merely await its return, your best bet is to prepare yourself. As Jesus taught, you are “condemned already.” It will defeat you in your present state, no matter when it appears.
To prepare is to come to the light; to expose your deeds to be reproved; to subject yourself to the fire; to critically inspect your acts, thoughts, and desires from a more enlightened perspective.
It makes sense to turn into the light. It is the most rational thing you can do. Still, it is the least likely outcome.
Why wouldn't you want to know what is true, even if it hurts? The truth is always better than the alternative.
The only solution is to look toward God for disillusionment—to look for correction, to seek to have our perceptions tested. When we choose to believe an illusion, it makes our limited/incorrect perspective more attractive than the more correct perspective offered to us. It takes a lie to make what is wrong preferable to what is right. One exchange between Jesus and Peter is a good illustration of this principle:
23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. (Matthew 16)
It seems at first glance that the Lord was being harsh toward Peter for what seems to be an act of love: Peter implored the Lord not to travel the path he knew would end in his death. The Lord rebuked Peter sharply because he supposed that it was possible for the Lord to be the Messiah without having to go through the things that the Messiah would need to go through. He wanted the benefits without the cost. The Lord helped Peter see more clearly by stating that the achievement of God’s will requires the complete subjugation of personal will.
Jesus explained that you cannot have two masters. You must either choose to do what God wants or what you want, but not both. The reward that follows here and hereafter is subject to the objective strength of the choice—not the desire of the actor.
Choosing to seek the truth through the Lord is like building your house on a rock. Loving a lie is like building a house on sand. When the challenges come—and they will—the faults of your limited or incorrect beliefs will be undeniable, and cause you great suffering:
13 But whoso among you shall do more or less than these are not built upon my rock, but are built upon a sandy foundation; and when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and beat upon them, they shall fall, and the gates of hell are ready open to receive them.
14 Therefore blessed are ye if ye shall keep my commandments, which the Father hath commanded me that I should give unto you. (3 Nephi 18)
Stress comes either from fear of the unknown or fear of what you know you must do. In either case, full trust in God is the antidote to stress. Instead of relieving stress the only way it can truly be relieved, the world seeks freedom from stress through ignorance of how things really are. Most wish to remain in blissful ignorance of reality—which is fine until it shows up at your doorstep, in which case the outcome is far worse than if you knew it was coming and could at least reconcile yourself to that idea, and perhaps do something about it as well. Of course, ignoring what you know you must do leads to greater misery than facing it head on. Your lack of facing what you must do will cause you pain in terms of consequences that could have been avoided as well as pain in terms of anxiety over what you know will surely come. You forfeit the joy and peace of mind that comes to those who do the best they know how at all times and in all places.
Wickedness never was happiness. Pleasure can come from truth or illusion. Illusory pleasure always comes as a mortgaged cost. Pleasure can be encountered in falsehood, but it is mortgaged against a future realization of truth. Any pleasure based on illusion is subject to repayment with interest, and will always generate more pain than pleasure. The price for illusory pleasure may be delayed, but is always greater than what it provides. The bill always comes due, and when it does the balance is far worse than if you didn't believe the illusion in the first place. When the truth is discovered—and it has a way of forcing its way into illusions through sudden, awful snaps back to reality—it will bring with it not only a radical robbery of already-felt pleasure, but also a deep cavity where that pleasurable memory sat.
In the end, the cost of feeling illusory pleasure is much greater than reality, no matter how hard that reality is. There is no escaping from reality, only mortgaging against it, and the interest of illusory pleasure is so much greater than we can afford to pay.
The gospel is about minimizing the illusion, which means minimizing unnecessary suffering. We ought to lean on the Lord and his perfect knowledge, and seek it instead of our own preconceived notions, which are almost guaranteed to be false. For example, we are exceedingly limited in our awareness of options, risk, cost, and benefit. We are tempted by appeals to our pride, our bodies, and our emotions.
What is good is what is God, because God by definition always knows more than us about the reality that we inhabit. Your ability to choose is limited by the accuracy of your perception of reality. You are unable to choose what is ideal for you to the extent that your perception of reality is incorrect or nonexistent.
The Lord said “He that loses his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16:25) How can you find what you have given away? What the Lord is saying is that what you give away is only what you think you have, an illusion. What you think you give away, you never really had in the first place. The only way to find what you really want, deep down inside, is to find the truth. If you find the truth, you will also find what you seek, and it will be real.
It is always better to embrace reality than to hide from it. It is much better to embrace reality, turning away from what we know to be false and questioning everything that might only seem true because of our ignorance. Anything built on illusion is going to eventually break. Jesus said anything not from him will shake and crumble. Trust him. Turn to him. Learn from him.