The Glory of God is Intelligence

The Glory of God is Intelligence: Acquiring and Disseminating Light and Truth

The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. (D&C 93:36)

For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (Moses 1:39)

It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance. (D&C 131:6)

“God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with Himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits.” – Joseph Smith.

Part One: Fundamentals of Truth

Chapter 1: The Light of the World

He was engaged in his work. Every day was like the last. Saul, the faithful Pharisee, was consummately rooting out the heresy that was sweeping through Judaism. One day, in the midst of his work, he was struck with a vision of God—and in a moment everything was different. A lifetime of accumulated knowledge and familiarity was turned on its head. He was blinded by the light. Rather, the light exposed his blindness, to which he was previously unaware, being blessed by God with a physical witness of his cognitive impairment. Paul—as he would now be known—had encountered an expanded awareness. As always happens, accompanying this awareness was a new vision of who he was (the good and the bad) and how he should act. Though he was contemporarily well known for his zeal, Paul would have been lost to history as yet another unnamed Pharisee had he not encountered and heeded the additional light that he discovered had been all around him the whole time.

Like Paul, you are about to take the next step on your journey to a fuller realization of the light that is available, in its fullness, all around you.

This world and all its trappings are utter refuse compared to the glory and knowledge that God provides to all who love and seek him. Whether you are at the tail end of a life where you have served God to the best of your knowledge, or whether you are fostering a nascent belief in God, he has so much more in store for you than you are presently aware of.

The key to unlocking your unclaimed treasures of wisdom, knowledge, glory, and power lies in obtaining further light and truth. By learning more about what light and truth are, why they are important, and how they are obtained and shared with others, you will be enabled to ascend to a higher degree of awareness. This might sound cliché or New Age, but it is neither. It is the basics; Gospel 101; the previously unseen root of everything you presently believe that is true, and the key to everything you presently lack.

As you will see in the chapters to follow, obtaining a higher degree of awareness is inherently tactile and practical, and is the very purpose for which this entire world was created, and for which you were born.

The question of what truth is and how to obtain it is as old as mankind. Once, many years ago, one particular man asked this very question. Unlike the many others who had done it before and since, the answer to his question was literally right in front of him.

This man was Pilate, and standing before him was the Lord Jesus Christ. We can’t know how sincere Pilate was in the question he offered Jesus, but what we do know is that before him stood a being who had the answer to every question Pilate could have had—in fact, the answer to every question that can be conceived in this world.

The Lord said: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12) The Lord Jesus knows everything pertaining to this creation, but Pilate obviously did not know who it was that stood before him or what he possessed.

Truth is things as they really are (see Jacob 4:13). This is a deceptively simple definition.

Truth is never conveyed in its fullness. God does not reveal all truth at once. It is impossible for limited humans to receive a revelation from God at the level of his perfection. Every message has to be framed according to our limited understanding. Every effort has to be taken to avoid colliding with our many biases and preconceived notions if at all possible.

Just as a parent can oversimplify a complicated concept when explaining something to a child, God simplifies truth to be understandable at our level. This is, for example, why the Lord taught in parables.

To those who are not prepared, God’s light seems like darkness. It must be delivered in pieces or out of focus at first. It takes time and obedience to gain further light and truth; to piece together the pieces received, to receive new pieces, or to focus the blurriness.

As an example, consider that the Master summarized the entire gospel into two simple commandments.

While we can see that truth is simple enough to be contained in two brief phrases, we also see that it is at least complicated enough to take up thousands of pages of scriptures in elaboration.

There is, in fact, no limit to the complexity of truth—“...truth abideth and hath no end.” (D&C 88:66) The closer you look at truth, the more complicated it gets. The Apostle John said “the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” about the actions of Jesus, let alone the gospel that dictated those actions (John 21:25).

Understanding that truth is eternally expanding means that it is impossible to know everything about everything. Continual searching will always yield greater truth.

Truth is not absolute—it is an infinite continuum. Think of it as a decimal point number. Any representation of the number will be, at best, a truncation of the actual number because decimals are infinite—you can always add another number to the right hand side.

Truth is infinite and therefore unknowable. Humans cannot deal in truth, because we cannot comprehend, represent, or interrogate the infinite. The best we can do is approximate.

Unlike truth itself, which is infinite, an approximation of it is finite. It is not final, and it is not complete. Approximations have limits and they have rounding errors. How much do these matter? A lot, it turns out. The more complex a system, the more sensitive it is to even the slightest errors in the approximation of its values.

The perceptive notice the effects of these errors, and interpret them as a need to replace certain portions of their understanding of truth with new or more accurate approximations.

Some unfortunate souls don’t bother paying attention to the limitations of their approximation, and die believing the same limited ideas they were taught as a child, in spite of a lifetime of evidences of their inadequacies.

We acquire light and truth by attaining ever-more accurate approximations of truth, informed by things we hear that offer an improvement.

What we regard as truth is not actually truth. It is merely our perception of truth. Our perception of truth is our current noisy discrete approximation of reality. It changes from person to person, and from one moment to the next, depending on the person’s awareness and comprehension of good and evil.

Perception is progressive. Every level of perception allows us to deal with more of reality—either with what was previously unknown to us, or what was previously less known to us.

Our perception, though fatally flawed, can still lead to positive interactions with pseudo-reality. In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is able to have a good time in the Emerald City in spite of the fact that its existence is predicated on the fraud of the Wizard having special wisdom or power. The wizard did not have to be real in order for her to experience life as if he was. How we feel is not a result of reality. Instead, it is a result of our perception—how we frame our noisy, limited observations of reality.

If we can experience good things at any level of reality, why bother obtaining a more accurate estimate of it? One reason is that our inability to interact with higher order reality does not prevent it from acting on us!

Unknown dangers can come to us and hurt us whether we know about them ahead of time or not. Believing in the wizard may have enabled Dorothy to frolic in the Emerald City, but it did not kill the wicked witch. To kill the witch, Dorothy first had to come to terms with higher order truth—truth that ripped out the illusion of the wizard. Illusions may be valuable, but they always come at a price. The cost to perpetuate the illusion is always far greater than the benefit.

Perception is the way we interpret our knowledge (experiences) based on our beliefs (which are not based on experience). Perception is completely malleable. No one forces your way of interpreting reality to conform with your experiences, let alone with the truth. Perception is a practice. You can be good, bad, or in between when it comes to your ability to rationally synthesize your observations and beliefs.

We are living in an age when technology can create illusions that are impossible to distinguish from reality. For instance, there are programs that can create undetectable fake videos of real people. Recently, a program was created that creates selfies of undetectable fake people. Just as our perception of a person is independent of what that person actually said and whether they even exist, our perception of reality can be grossly distorted from actuality. Just as you could be genuinely enraged or enamored with what you see in fake media, you can have “real” feelings about perceptions that are totally false.

In scriptural language, beliefs that are ineffectual because they are based on something other than reality are described as vain. Vanity is when we pursue something that does not lead to improvement: “And turn ye not aside: for then should ye go after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are vain.” (1 Samuel 12:21) There is no such thing as a neutral belief. Everything leads to improvement or debasement.

Material comfort is not the characteristic outcome of seeking truth. A love of truth is a reward in and of itself. The principles learned create a better you. Your character goes with you no matter the external environment you find yourself in. It can produce peace that is untouchable by your surroundings, and meaning that endures no matter the actions of those around you.

Just as wheat and tares can’t be distinguished until harvest time, those who seek truth for temporal gain are distinguished from those who seek it for itself when a situation arises where the expected benefit doesn’t justify the sacrifice required. Jesus repeatedly commanded that we keep his commandments even if it costs us our lives and everything we know and love.

The cost exceeding the benefit is the constant case when it comes to charity for others. A stronger motive than reciprocation is needed for true discipleship.

To love truth is to love God with all one’s might, mind, and strength, and thus love him more than any cost that might be incurred by obeying him. This love casts out all fear of coming to the light; the light which surely will make painfully aware any shortcoming in the truth seeker. Conversely, a love of God and truth implies a hatred of error and evil.

The truth seeker would rather press forward through the abrasive process of repentance than sojourn in even the slightest amount of darkness. They trust that God alone knows the path to complete happiness, and anything they are asked to abandon in that path is but a small price to pay for the riches of eternity. As the Psalmist said.

Truth seekers must love truth above all things of this world. That includes their time, talents, treasure, loved ones, and lives.

Every one of us could ask ourselves what we would ask Jesus if, like Pilate, we had the chance to stand face to face with him. If you could ask the creator of all we know anything, what would it be? What treasures of knowledge and wisdom would you plead for? What alleviation from pain and suffering might you request? What favors for yourself or those you love would you seek? What burning, existential questions would you ask?

Whether you recognize it or not, the Lord Jesus Christ and all the truth he embodies is before you at all times and in all places. He is the light that shines in the darkness. He is truth. He is glory. He is happiness. He is the knowledge we need to overcome this world.

A tremendous volume of writing has been dedicated to questions regarding what truth is, how to get it, and why it matters, yet none of it contains what the Lord will teach you in this book.

I realize that it takes a great deal of faith to believe that God would transmit such significant information through such an obscure volume and through a no-name writer. The Lord delights in using the weak things of the world to do his work.

His use of obscure venues is a door through which those burdened with pride cannot enter; it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye. Make no mistake; if there is any wisdom or benefit in the words in this book, they are from God. The author takes credit only for the crudeness of expression and any typos that have eluded the volunteer editors.

This book will provide you with the tools he desires you to have. You need them to expand your awareness of the truth that God wants you to obtain. It is dedicated to all those who love truth. May it bring you closer to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Chapter 2: Good and Evil

Light is the power of God, the glory of God, the knowledge of God, the will of God, the character of God. It is in all things and through all things, and acts on them all, but is also its own entity.

Light is the comprehension of all things: an awareness that they exist, an understanding of what they are and are not, and a correct recognition of their value or lack thereof. It is the perception of what is hidden and the realization of what was unknown.

Light is not reality; it is the means by which it is discerned, or perceived and understood. It is the means by which things are perceptible, while it itself is invisible.

The Lord emits all light and truth through the universe. Light is the means by which God is in all things and through all things. It is a signal that is broadcast through all things at all times. It is all there, all the time, whether recognized or not. It is the voice of God emanating from his throne.

The creation account reads.

Before there was a sun or moon, there was light. Before the sun existed, “darkness was upon the face of the deep.” These mysteries need not be confusing. Light includes what we see emanating from the sun and reflecting from the moon, but it is much greater than that.

Matter is eternal. It cannot be created or destroyed. It can be organized together, or separated. Matter differs in how it reacts to light. Some matter responds to a great degree, and some to a lesser degree, and the manifestations of that response are varied.

All of creation is designed to be a mechanism for increasing the material response to light. God’s purpose is to provide the environment and experiences necessary to bring about the greatest possible material response to light.

The creation account shows how he does this. He created the heaven and the earth by bringing together matter that was previously dissociated. His influence provided a means for the matter to react to a greater extent. Then he invited the matter to recognize and react to the light. Some of it did, but not all, and he was able to divide the responsive matter from the matter that was not responsive. The “days” of creation were not rotations of our planet around a star. What we call an evening and a morning are merely signs that give a figure of a much greater process. Each creation day is a step towards greater light consisting of an “evening” where the darkness of a lack of awareness of limitations is replaced by a “morning” of God’s providing a means for greater response to light, followed by his inviting matter to respond to a greater degree, followed by his division of the newly differentiated matter.

This process did not end with the creation of the sun and moon. Or with man. Everything that God does follows this pattern. Everything serves his plan.

The whole point of the gospel is to increase the response of matter to light. “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” (Proverbs 6:23)

The apostle John opened his account of the Lord’s ministry by saying.

The Amplified translation of the Bible, so called because of its retention of the meanings of the original words in brackets, reads like this.

Darkness is not evil. Rather, it is ignorance. It is a lack of awareness or a refusal to recognize what is known.

Darkness may not recognize or receive the light, but it can’t stop it either.

The light shines on, even in the darkest darkness. Understand what this means: All light and truth pertaining to this domain is always available, even if you don’t recognize or perceive it.

Though the creation had brought about a means where matter could possess increased light, that quantity of light was limited by the fact that all of creation was made to be acted upon, not to act for itself. This changed with the fall. The fall brought about an environment where living things could be aware of good and evil, and could therefore choose to acquire more light than would otherwise be possible.

When Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, they opened a channel of perception that was previously closed to them. They gained both a basic understanding of good and evil (that included, for instance, a knowledge of their nakedness) as well as the ability to increase in understanding of good and evil. That basic understanding of good and evil came through their conscience (literally meaning “inner knowledge”), which instructs every man sufficiently to know good from evil.

With this key of additional knowledge, mankind was given agency they didn’t have before. Being made aware of good and evil, they were both free to obey or disobey their conscience, obtaining the outcomes of their own choice.

Do you know what is good and what is evil as readily as you know day from night? Do you know God's will as clearly as you know the difference between day and night?

We are told that the difference between good and evil is so plain “that ye may know with a perfect knowledge, as the daylight is from the dark night.” (Moroni 7:15) Day and night are starkly contrasted, and obviously different. If the difference between good and evil were so easy to tell, you would expect that everyone would discern them correctly. And yet, the scriptures are full of admonitions not to misjudge them, suggesting what is plain to observation: People get it wrong all of the time. We are charged not to “judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil.” (Moroni 7:14) but to “search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil”, and to “lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not.” (Moroni 7:19) Clearly, while discerning good from evil should be plain, our default process is anything but.

What is good? The Hebrew word towb is translated to “good.” If you look it up, you’ll find very many English words assigned as meanings. But this doesn’t really tell the whole story. If you look at these words—glad, prosperous, valuable, strong and fertile, attractive, positive, special, agreeable—you find that all of these are subsumed by another definition: beneficial.

Good means that which is beneficial. God is good. Everything he does is for the benefit of the world.

What is good, therefore, is good because it yields to God, who is the most improved of all, and the source of all that improves.

When God created the world, it says he “saw it was good.” That is synonymous with “it was better than it was before,” “it was happier than it was before,” or “it was beneficial.”

Interestingly, happiness has been defined by specialists as progress towards a worthwhile goal. What is the manner of happiness? It is to improve! To be in a state of improvement.

Good, in a scriptural sense, means that which improves you. Nothing more, and nothing less.

What is evil? Evil, in a scriptural sense, means that which degrades you. Nothing more, and nothing less. “Whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil.” (Moroni 7:17) If it leads to your degradation, you can know with a perfect knowledge it is evil.

While these definitions are simple, they are powerful, and their implications are tremendous in impact and eternal significance. To know whether something is good is quite simple, as long as you know these definitions.

How do you tell good from evil? You use “the Spirit of Christ [which] is given to every man, that he may know good from evil.” (Moroni 7:16) This is your individual repository of light. It is your best, sincere understanding of what improves and what degrades.

Deciding what is right is not usually as simple as “praying about it” and interpreting your feelings. Sometimes, what is right is very clear through such means. Most often, however, you need to graduate to a fuller use of the faculties God has given you.

Anything that doesn’t edify is evil: “And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness.” (D&C 50:23) This includes things you think you need, and certainly includes anything you feel you can’t help. If you do something that does not improve, or do not do something that improves, you are subscribing to evil.

The key to understanding what is meant by good and evil is the human conscience. The human conscience has been described in many ways. Here, we use the phrase to mean an individual’s sincere understanding of God’s will. This is one and the same as the person’s sincere understanding of right and wrong—which is important as not all people believe in God, but all people do have an understanding of right and wrong. To tell good from evil, you sincerely consider whether something matches your honest idea of right and wrong. If it does, that thing is good. If it does not, that thing is evil.

Critical to this definition is sincerity. Without “real intent,” it is not possible to be good (see Moroni 7:6,9). It is so common for a person to say that they believe something is ok when they actually don’t. What they mean is that they want it to happen, in spite of the little voice or feeling inside them telling them it is not right.

To be good is to perfectly reconcile your behavior to your conscience—to always act fully reconciled to your understanding of God’s will, at all times, and in all places. This facility can range all levels of sophistication. It can be as simple as a feeling (though that is a dangerous description, since impulses to do what is contrary to the conscience are almost always “feelings”). It can be as sophisticated as a complex analysis of similar situations, say, from the scriptures. It can be something in the middle, such as a person remembering a written commandment such as “thou shalt not kill.”

For some reason, we try to ascribe fixed, static meanings to good and evil. It is as if we have two buckets, one for good, and one for evil, and we try to put every concept, thing, and action into each bucket, never to be moved again. This is a grossly oversimplified representation of learning to discern between good and evil. It doesn’t take into account several factors, such as the fact that knowledge is an individual quality, and that it is variable in both its native disposition and in the effort expended to acquire more of it.

Good and bad are, in fact, abstract concepts. They are not concrete concepts. They are sets (or buckets) and the membership of each set (or what goes into each bucket) depends on several things. The assignment is specific to an individual, and based on that individual’s awareness of reality.

Because awareness is fluid (it can increase or decrease, and differs between individuals), so is the membership of what is good and what is evil. Though the membership changes, the rules of membership do not.

In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” This is one of many sayings that can be helpful or hurtful, depending on the interpretation. Nothing is good or bad of itself— your understanding dictates which it is.

What is good and what is evil is specific to an individual. It will depend on the individual’s understanding of right and wrong. One’s conscience is not static. It will be different not only from person to person, but in the same person, from time to time, depending on the person’s situation, experiences, and so on. Because good and evil are contextually defined by the state of the individual (conditioned on their understanding of God), what is good for one person may be evil for another, and vice versa.

The dynamic nature of good and evil and their contextual anchoring to an individual’s understanding is not a license to do evil, to excuse evil, or to call good evil and evil good. On the contrary, this idea is much harder to live than a static understanding of good and evil. The increased cost yields the invaluable reward of a growing understanding of God. A static concept of good and evil limits your understanding to the static level of how you now see God. To know him better, you must free yourself of the limits of your traditions, which requires you to acquire knowledge that will change your comprehension of good and evil.

The amount of knowledge a person has is wholly dependent on their obedience to what is already acquired and their diligence in seeking more. Because no two people have the same set or depth of knowledge, any correct framework of good and evil must provide a variable definition of these two. In other words, the buckets are not the same for any two people, and even for one person, what goes into each bucket will change as they acquire or lose light and truth.

Obedience to what you already know will open more opportunities to acquire more light and truth. As you acquire more light and truth, your perception of what is good and what is evil will change. You will add more items to your sets of good and evil by becoming aware of the moral nature of situations that you were previously unaware of. You will add more items to your sets of good and evil by breaking up items that are already there into several more specific concepts. The items in each set might change from good to evil, or vice versa. On the other hand, if you are disobedient to your present understanding, you will lose light and truth, and your conscience will deteriorate. You will be less capable of discerning between what improves you and what pulls you back.

Another thing that ought to be clear is that, as simple as this metric is, very few people employ it. Most people evaluate what they should do not based on whether it will improve them, but whether or not it will make them feel good. James 4:3 says: “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” In literal Greek it says “You ask and not receive because wrongly you ask that in the pleasures of you you [sic] may spend it.”

Improvement is a much broader concept than mere pleasure. While pleasure can accompany both good and evil, pleasure from evil comes with a mortgaged price in suffering, a price that must be paid eventually and is much larger than the pleasure received. Improvement frequently includes pleasure and pain, pain that leads to joy.

God is more aware of reality than any mortal, and his assignment of that reality into good and evil is more advanced than any mortal’s. His work of salvation is, described one way, to provide a means by which mankind can become aware of what God is aware, and learn why God views good and evil how he does.

God’s level of awareness of reality and his assignment of it into good and evil is available to all and at all times, because that intelligence is radiated to and through all things. He is not inconsistent or arbitrary in his broadcast of this information. Rather, we are inconsistent and arbitrary in our obtaining it. It cannot be obtained all at once. There are things in and about us that prevent us from receiving this. This information must be acquired and assimilated. This is what it means to learn to discern between good and evil.

As we see in the creation account, God’s instructions to proceed from one level to another, to improve, are given in each step of creation. God had a goal, and a plan to achieve the goal. Each time he gives an instruction, he watches the object until it obeys him. God broadcasts the signal until the object chooses to align with the instructions and become what God willed it to be. It was not an event, but a process; A process of gradual instruction that began where the object was and ended with the object obtaining the state God willed it to be in. It was like a non-pilot conducting an emergency landing via guidance from an expert over the radio. The guide has untold experience with the process, and sees the end from the beginning, but the emergency pilot only has their trust in the ground guide and their obedience to the step by step instructions they receive.

The choices we make determine who we are.

What we seek determines who we become. We are paid the wages of what we obey.

Being good and being evil is the same whether it refers to a person or a decision. If it improves, it is good. If it degrades, it is evil. If it grows, it is good. If it decays, it is evil.

Being good is not about your level of awareness, and being evil is not about the lack thereof. Consider this parable.

Note that the servant who was given five talents and obtained five more as well as the servant who had two and obtained two more were both told “thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” They were both congratulated, both entered “into the joy of [their] lord” and both rewarded to rule “over many things.” So we see that the Lord’s happiness over us is not about the absolute level of truth we obtain, but rather what we do with what we are given. If we acquire more light and truth than we started with and are reconciled to the level of light and truth we possess, we will receive his joy. If we do less than this, we will earn his disapproval.

If you are reconciled to the light God has given you, you are good. If you are not reconciled, you are evil.

You can’t stand still. If you are reconciled to the light God has given you, he will give you more. If you are growing in the light that God gives you, you are good. If you are not reconciled to the light God has given you, he will take some away. If you are decaying and losing light, you are evil. The Lord taught.

This teaching is not limited to wealth; it merely includes wealth. It is about everything the world offers.

You either love God or you don’t: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” (John 2:15) You either love truth or you don’t. If you love God with all your heart, you are good. If you love something else more than him, you are evil. If you love the truth more than anything else, you are good. If you turn away from anything your light tells you is true, you are evil.

This doctrine is liberating and exacting at the same time. On the one hand, it is liberating. You don’t have to be perfect to be good. You just have to be perfect in Christ. You don’t have to have all the light that God has. You just have to be perfectly obedient to the light you have. On the other hand, it is exacting. You really do have to be perfectly obedient to the light you have. You really do have to put God first.

You really do have to seek the truth at all cost, and obey it without any reservations. You really do have to “lay hold upon every good thing” by seeking and heeding every additional amount of light that is given you.

There is no fooling God, and there is no fooling reality. You really do become what you desire. If your desire is evil, you can’t benefit from the acts of good. Sooner or later, the outward appearance of who you are will reflect the inner corruption that grows undetected.

Wheat and tares might look similar when they are young, but they are obviously distinguishable at harvest time (see Matthew 13:24-30). The everincreasing awareness provided in mortal life will reveal every man’s heart, whether it is good or evil: “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)

After you die, you will.

These outcomes are not arbitrary, but are the natural consequences of the choices made in mortality. Those who did good in this life are good. Those who did evil are evil. The only way to change the outcome is to change the input.

The Lord said that true worshippers worship God in spirit and in truth.

To worship God in spirit is to sincerely comply to the light God has revealed to you with all your heart, might, mind, and strength. It requires reconciling yourself to God, to truth, as best you know it right now.

How do you reconcile your whole life to your best understanding of God?

First, realize that you must establish a daily habit of getting to know him better. If you don’t pray and study every day, how can you expect to get to know him?

Second, periodically conduct an honest self-assessment. This state is perishable. It must be renewed daily. Fully submitting yourself to God is what the Lord was referring to when he said: “if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)

Here is how you do it. Take some time. Find a quiet place where you can guarantee you won’t be interrupted. Make sure you have a notepad and a pen. Pray, and pour your heart out to God. Sincerely thank him for everything in your life. Be specific, and take your time. Once you have emptied your heart of all the gratitude you can muster, ask him to show you anything in your life that is out of accord with what he has taught you. Mentally explore every piece of your life, from your relationships with others to your work to your desires and feelings. Write down any changes that you need to make to bring your life into total alignment with your understanding of God’s character.

Commit to immediately making those changes that are needed to be reconciled to the light God has given you.

You may be tempted to wait to respond to the light at a more convenient time. Don’t. When a disciple responded to Jesus’ commandment with his intent to obey just as soon as he could go and bury his dead father, Jesus said: “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” (Matthew 8:22)

You may be tempted to rope off some areas as off limits. Don’t. Truth is universal. To acquire as much truth as quickly as possible, you must reconcile yourself to all truth as you know it.

Truth spans all domains. It isn’t just about strictly gospel commandments. If we know how to be more productive than we are at work, we must reconcile to that knowledge. If we know how to manage our weight, we must reconcile to that knowledge. If we know that certain entertainment is not uplifting, we must reconcile to that knowledge.

God is the source of all truth. If we want to access what he has in all areas of our lives, we must heed his light in all areas of our lives. The ways of the world are not truth. They are illusory, counterfeit, vain, and false. God has commanded us to forsake the world. We ought to forsake anything that is not by him or by his word, whatever domain it is in. “And I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God.” (D&C 98:11)

Some of the changes that will be suggested to you will seem impossible. Remember that God will never reveal to you a truth that lies outside your capacity to incorporate: “...the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” (1 Nephi 3:7)

Any perceived limits in your ability to change are not real limits, but merely limits in your trust in God.

It doesn’t matter how much you perceive the necessary change to be contrary to your disposition. The Lord said.

No part of you is so inherent that you can’t pluck it out or cut it off. If you can cut off a hand or pluck out an eye, surely you can change some aspect of your behavior or character. If you lack sufficient trust in God to make changes that seem as hard as plucking out your eye or chopping off your hand, what makes you think you trust God enough for him to work miracles that are as hard as restoring sight to your eyes or regrowing a hand?

The Lord said.

God is purely good and loving, and he knows much better than you what will lead to your happiness. Clearly, the Lord’s intent is to have you prefer what he is offering you to what you already have. If you trust him— and you have no reason not to—you should embrace any opportunity to reconcile yourself and your life to him. When you truly believe God, you let go of all the false supports in your life. You embrace your own limitations by letting go of all pretense. You find immeasurable strength in first recognizing and then facing the darkness within yourself.

When you reconcile yourself fully to God, there is nothing left to sacrifice. It is all on the table.

When you trust God, you pay attention to all those little holes and ask “what is the problem here, what am I missing?” You maintain the idea that everything you see as solid and permanent is temporary and subject to change. You accept that nothing in this world is worth the price. You adopt the uncommon position of being in the dual state of complete brokenness and unshakable firmness—a state that can only come from complete dependence on God, what the scriptures call a broken heart and a contrite spirit. In becoming nothing, you discover everything.

The scriptures call the state of reconciliation with the light that you have being perfect in Christ.

Being perfect in Christ happens when you “deny yourself of all ungodliness”—when you live in perfect accordance with the light that you have. This is the whole point of the gospel, and doing anything less than this will result in less of what he intends you to obtain.

Being perfected in Christ is like fossilization. Everything weak and perishable within you is replaced with something strong and permanent, line upon line. It is done by God’s grace, through the blood of Christ, through his truth, not yours. All you have to do is admit his influence into you, something so simple in concept, but hard in practice. It requires all your might, mind and strength. All of everything you are has to be focused on obtaining and obeying the will of God, which is manifested in you as the light that he gives you. That consummate desire and effort is what it requires to open the gate for his light to come into you. Level by level, your character is replaced with his. When this happens, you truly do have the kingdom of God within you. You will not overcome the entropy in this world by converting it to you, but by converting yourself to him. No matter where you are and what you are going through, your inward strength will be unconquerable, because what is inside you is he who has overcome all things. You will be one with him and he will be in you.

Chapter 3: Awareness

In the garden of Eden, there were two trees. One was the tree of life, which granted the eater perpetual youth and life while they continued to eat it. The other was the tree of knowledge, which bore fruit that was forbidden by God to eat.

The tree of knowledge gave the eater a greater awareness of reality. Unlike the tree of life, which had to continue to be eaten in order to continue its effect, the effect of the tree of knowledge was in place immediately after one bite and stayed in place until death, which itself was one of its effects. Upon eating the fruit, Eve and then Adam both became aware of reality to a greater degree than they previously had been. The fruit opened the door to mortality—a state most clearly classified by its continual and varied exposure to increased awareness.

Prior to eating the fruit, Adam and Eve were perfectly reconciled to good and evil as they understood them. That their knowledge of good and evil was already existent is clear by the fact that they had some level of perception: they knew who God was, they had joy in his presence, they had enough understanding to name the animals, and they were capable of obeying or disobeying God’s instructions. Although they had knowledge, that knowledge was limited, as shown by the fact that they were not ashamed of their nakedness. They felt perfectly comfortable in the presence of God. This all changed when the fruit of the tree of knowledge was consumed.

Opening the door to increased awareness sets off a two-step cycle. In the first step, you are exposed to more of reality than you were previously. This exposure cuts you off from the presence of God until and unless you correctly parse this new awareness into good and evil according to the light given you by God. In the second step, you reconcile yourself to God through obeying your awareness of good and evil. This triggers a greater revelation of awareness, which starts things back at the first step. This cycle repeats until one of two things happens: either you choose to quit the process or you come to the point that you trust God so fully that you immediately and correctly react to any increased awareness that God provides.

Those few people who reach the point where they trust God enough to correctly react to anything he will reveal to them have made their calling and election sure. It is by them and them only that salvation is obtained.

Awareness is the revelation of things previously unknown to you. It is an increased perception of reality. It is the realization of the incorrectness or incompleteness of something you previously thought was true, whether external (in the world) or internal (in yourself).

Awareness is what is changed by more light. It is a decrease in darkness. Darkness is what is unknown or incorrect. Light reveals what is unknown or incorrect in your perception. It increases awareness.

Awareness is how your perception is advanced. The key difference between higher order and lower order truth is that higher order truth contains more details. It includes a view that is both broader and more detailed.

In the scriptures, awareness is described in conjunction with the word “eyes.” When Adam and Eve’s “eyes” were opened, it was not their physical eyes that changed, but their awareness of reality.

The Lord’s complete awareness is described by his saying that he “knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes;” (D&C 38:2) The Psalmist wrote: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” (Proverbs 15:3) What does it mean that the Lord’s eyes are in every place? It means that he is aware of all things. It is important to note that awareness includes both the evil and the good. Unlike God, our awareness is not complete. However far it extends, it must comprehend both the evil and the good, because there is opposition in all things.

The Lord’s mission is to extend our awareness. The Lord said the sign of his divinity was that “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” (Matthew 11:5) Why did the Lord open the eyes of the blind? It was a type to show that, as Christ, he is the key to opening our awareness. We are not all blind in sight, but we are all blind in awareness.

God has greater awareness than any person. He explained that all people have different levels of intelligence, and that his intelligence is greater than anyone else’s.

Spiritual intelligence is called light because it shows greater detail; a greater awareness. Because God’s awareness is greater than ours, we ought to submit to him in order to receive the greater benefits that accompany a greater awareness: “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.” (Proverbs 3:7) What does it mean to be wise in our own eyes? It means to judge our righteousness based on our own limited awareness.

Far too many people think they see, and therefore will never see more.

To fear the Lord is to operate under the assumption that his ways are higher than ours because he possesses more awareness than we do. It is to believe that although “all the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes” (Proverbs 16:2), men’s hearts continually desire less than what is best due to ignorance and nature. Wise men do not lean on their own understanding (see Proverbs 3:5) “...because of their humility; because they were not proud in their own eyes.” (Alma 1:20). They do what is right “in the eyes of the Lord.” (1 Kings 15:5) Like the Psalmist, they ask God to instruct them beyond their awareness: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” (Psalm 119:18)

The Lord makes a distinction between normal intelligence and “the noble and great ones” (Abraham 3:22). How does God distinguish between the intelligence of one vs. another? It comes down to how much light they seek, receive, and live: “Behold, the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one; he that is righteous is favored of God.” (1 Nephi 17:35)

God provides equal opportunity to all his children, but recognizes the fact that our differences in heed and diligence produce unequal outcomes. God provides an equal opportunity to all people, but many do not accept his invitation at all, and very few accept it completely.

Clearly, all people do not exert the same diligence or obedience in searching for and assimilating light and truth. The Lord taught this on multiple occasions.

In the parable of the sower, he indicated that there would be people whose seed was eaten by birds, seed that withered in the sun, and seed that produced thirty, sixty, or one hundred times the quantity of seed planted.

Not everyone perceived the same depth of meaning in the parables, even though everyone heard them equally. Likewise, although the same seed is scattered in the hearts of all men, some bring forth one hundred times the fruit of others, some sixty times the fruit of others, some thirty times the fruit of others, and some don’t respond to it at all.

In the parable of the talents, the Lord taught that there would be people whose efforts reap more rewards, and that some people would not exert any effort.

Mormon wrote the following, making a distinction between “chosen vessels” who are of a “strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness” and “the residue” of men.

It may be offensive to modern sensibilities to recognize that we all possess differing amounts of light and truth, but we should not feel bad about this. Instead, we should be grateful because we can assume that no matter how much truth we have, someone has more.

If we do not accept that one person can have more light than another, we must also believe that the most depraved individual is no different than Jesus Christ himself, who also lived once as a man. In such a blind state, we must suppose that anything goes, and there is no need for repentance or improvement. Even if we believe repentance is necessary, how could we identify the way forward if we believe all people are the same? The very process of repentance consists in a) recognizing some behavior that is more righteous than your own and some bit of light and truth more advanced than what you currently have, and b) implementing it in your life. If one person can't be better than another, you can't recognize superior light and truth to your own, and you can't advance towards God.

We all have vastly different levels of awareness. Those who desire salvation must acquire more.

We can learn more about what is required by analyzing the properties of Zion, the city of the saved. When Zion comes again, it will be among a group of people who will have the same level of awareness.

In order to live there, you have to know and keep all of God’s commandments: “...when men should keep all my commandments, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch which I have caught up unto myself.” (JST Genesis 9:21)

In the book of Revelation we read of advanced beings who are covered with eyes in front and behind. These eyes represent increased awareness.

As we acquire greater awareness, we too will obtain these figurative eyes before, behind, and within, demonstrating the categories of awareness, referring respectively to the future, the past, and internally (our desires and presence or absence of knowledge).

The quantity of light and truth each person possesses is completely within their own control. This life is the time to prepare for eternity, and it is where you have the opportunity to grow in your awareness.

We get according to what we are willing to receive. We alone control what heed and diligence we exercise to acquire and assimilate truth. Alma recorded that we were all given an equal opportunity to acquire light, and any differences in our possession of it are due to our own action or inaction.

One’s awareness is not static. As you obey, you will open more opportunities to acquire more light and truth. As you acquire more light and truth, your perception of what is good and what is evil will change. You will add more items to your sets of good and evil by becoming aware of the moral nature of situations that you were previously unaware of. You will add more items to your sets of good and evil by breaking up items that are already there into several more specific concepts. The items in each set might change from good to evil, or vice versa. On the other hand, if you are disobedient to your present understanding, you will lose light and truth, and your conscience will deteriorate: “And he that repents not, from him shall be taken even the light which he has received” (D&C 1:33). You will be less capable of discerning between what improves you and what pulls you back.

The Lord had an interesting exchange with his disciples during his mortal ministry. He told them: “whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.” (Matthew 13:12) In doing so, he described that light and truth accrete in high abundances among the few—just as wealth does. The more light you have, the more you get. This flies in the face of the sentiments of modern society, who wish that the world were a place where everyone obtained equal outcomes. As previously quoted in the parable of the sower from Matthew 13, the Lord explained that the exact same seed yields wildly different outcomes depending on the receptivity of the soil. The reaction of the person to truth is wholly responsible for how much fruit it bears. Those that choose to turn away from it because of persecution, love of lesser things, and lies produce no fruit. Some few produce fruit. But even among those, there is a stunning variety of outputs, with some few of the few bearing a hundred times more than their peers.

What are these fruits the Lord speaks of? They are the outcomes of gospel living: resilient adherence to godly character through all situations; maintaining reconciliation to the light you have in all scenarios without exception. Those who bear fruit are those who have come to think, feel, and act like God to some degree. Those bearing more fruit have acquired and live more advanced levels of God’s light.

How are these levels manifested? When teaching his disciples, the Lord explained the difference between those with more or less light.

Those with more light understand more advanced topics, have more advanced experiences, and become more advanced people than those who have less light.

Truth is eternal, meaning progressively expanding forever as you learn more of it. When you are obedient to your light, you receive more: your level of both awareness of reality and understanding of right and wrong increase.

Awareness is like a flooded bank. As you acquire truth, the water recedes, and you see things about yourself, the world, and the gospel that you had never before imagined. God graciously hides all but the minimum amount of truth from us at first so that we are not overwhelmed by being exposed to what we are not prepared to see. As soon as and as often as we obey what we have, he reveals more. Eventually, when our faith and trust in him becomes unshaken, we begin obeying what he reveals immediately when he reveals it. Though this does not mean he reveals all remaining truth in this sphere to us at once, it does mean that he can do it faster than before, because we no longer need to follow the alienation-reconciliation repentance cycle each time he teaches us something new. Because we retain the spirit, we are able to learn more, faster.

We can obtain more awareness by making our “eye single to the glory of God,” or desiring to understand and obey all the truth of which we are aware. Anything less than this is rebellion against God: “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.” (Ezekiel 12:2)

Those who do otherwise either rebel against what their eyes show them, or they believe all they see is all there is to see, and thereby cut themselves off from anything better than what they have (see Matthew 13:15-17, quoted above).

Acquisition of knowledge requires obedience to everything you know as you know it.

Increased awareness can come from God or Satan. Both possess awareness beyond your own, and both have a reason to give you more, but the reasons differ.

God recognizes we are all in bondage to our ignorance. He gives light to everyone, knowing that most will use it to harm themselves and others, because it is the only way to bring people out of bondage.

Satan recognizes we are all in bondage to our ignorance. He tries to keep everyone in ignorance through means that cause people not to think, not to question, and not to act for their own improvement. He wants them to be satisfied, addicted, unintelligent, docile, dogmatic, frustrated, confused, and angry. His strategy is to keep everyone in ignorance, but he realizes that some people have certain traits that make them dangerous. With these people, he takes a different strategy, depending on their traits.

Those who have the gift of belief, but who have not developed the skill of discernment are flooded by Satan with extraneous nonsense. You can tell these people by how much of their lives they spend on unfruitful practices—practices that might be readily recognizable by others as hokey, superstitious, or cult-like. Note the intentional use of the word “practices.” Those who are believing but neutralized by Satan remain on the hamster wheel of action without ever becoming better people. They are far too busy with their rituals to actually buckle down and learn something: about themselves, about God, etc. These people embrace a very watered-down view of God, and usually subscribe to the simplistic and weak idea that God exists to uniformly accept any and every desire they might have. Satan can rest assured that these types of people will never exert the testing necessary to let go of their time-consuming beliefs, and since their identities are so wrapped up in their false ideas, he can count on their rejection of anyone with higher light and truth who comes along trying to dislodge them.

Those who have the skill of discernment, but not the gift of belief, tend to write off out of hand (either initially or after a grace period of blind obedience to typically inherited religion) anything connected to God. These people readily accept that temporal knowledge is sufficiently complex to require years of professional education and practice, but expect spiritual knowledge to come all at once, with no effort whatsoever. They expect child-level spiritual explanations to endure the weight of adult-level problems, while having no such expectations in temporal areas. All that is required for Satan to derail these people is to expose them to greater awareness than their belief can support. They will not invest the experimentation and study required to grow their faith.

Those with a tendency towards obedience will be bound up in the dogmatic acceptance of whatever they currently believe to the crowding out of anything that is better.

As a result of these tactics, most who would otherwise acquire great light and truth end up turning away from the productive paths and spend their lives doing very little good in the world.

Chapter 4: Saved by Knowledge

There is an infinite amount of truth: “...truth abideth and hath no end.” (D&C 88:66) We won’t come to the end of it in this life, no matter how much we acquire.

Though truth is infinite, there is a finite amount of truth associated with each scope. The Lord said: “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it.” (D&C 93:30) What are these spheres? Each is an extent of relevance defined by the level of trust in God required to obtain that degree of truth. Trust is required because trust is the limiting factor in obedience to God’s instructions and subjection to his experiences, which will be discussed shortly.

By this criteria, three groups emerge. These groups are called “kingdoms” in the scriptures. The bounds of these kingdoms are defined by how much trust in God is required to reconcile one’s life to the instructions given in the context of the given range of awareness. They are each defined by “a law.” In scriptural parlance, those “who cannot abide the law” of a particular kingdom—or do not trust God sufficiently to obey the level of instructions given—“cannot abide” the glory of that kingdom—or can’t endure the content of the awareness associated with those instructions (see D&C 88:22-25).

The law of each kingdom is the correct understanding of good and evil for all elements in the set of approximate truths pertaining to that kingdom. Those “who cannot abide the law of a” particular kingdom “cannot abide” the glory of that kingdom (see D&C 88:22-25). To “abide a law” is to act completely in accordance with the level of light and truth corresponding to that kingdom.

This law is the truth, the light, and the word. It is your discrete level of reality awareness and discernment of good and evil. The fullness of this law is the level of light and truth possessed by God.

Law, glory, light, and truth are all intimately tied together. Any time you have one, you have all the others, and any time you lack one, you lack all the others.

Reconciliation to the law of the level of truth you possess sanctifies you, or makes you able to receive the glory pertaining to that kingdom, or all the blessings reaped as a natural consequence of living the truths at that level: “that which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same.” (D&C 88:34)

There is a range of light and truth corresponding to a given kingdom. There is a minimum and a maximum. Everyone who possesses the minimum amount can dwell in happiness in that kingdom.

While the degree of light and truth in a kingdom exists in a range, the degree of trust required for each kingdom is a fixed amount. A descriptive analog of how this works can be found in how the quantum states of atoms operate. Each atom’s nucleus is orbited by one or more electrons. These electrons can absorb energy. Under a certain fixed threshold of energy, an electron’s orbit will be normal. If it is exposed to a higher band of energy, it will assume a larger orbit. While each atom has different energy bands and orbit sizes, the general behavior is the same: the electron can absorb any amount of energy within a band and still have the same fixed orbit. It is only when the energy passes the threshold that the electron will take the larger orbit, and no orbits exist in between. Interestingly, these thresholds do not occur in even spacing. The radius of each orbit is much larger than the previous one.

To sum up, our trust in God exists at quantum levels (like whole numbers), while our awareness is continuous (like decimal numbers), and greater awareness requires far greater trust in God.

Within each kingdom, there are innumerable “mansions.” The Lord said.

A mansion is an individual possession, but “mansion” here does not mean a house. Instead, it is a specific set of understanding, comprised of the individual’s experience, understanding, and desires. These inform the individual’s sincere idea of what is true and what is not, which in turn defines the specific glory each individual possesses here and hereafter.

The degree of trust in God that we develop in this life will grant us a “portion” of the glory of that kingdom in this life and enable us to obtain a fullness of that kingdom’s glory after we die (see D&C 88:28-31).

There are those who trust the world more than they trust God. These inherit telestial glory. These are they who never get to the point of listening to God’s voice directly, which begins as the voice of the conscience. They ignore that voice, and instead find some hireling to preach religion to them. They do not listen to people who actually possess and preach God’s word (see D&C 76:99-101). These trust the world and their carnal pleasures more than they trust God. They lie, they cheat, they steal, they commit adultery and sexual deviance (see D&C 76:103-106).

There are those who trust themselves more than they trust God. These inherit terrestrial glory. They trust God enough to follow his voice, but not enough to tenaciously seek more than what they have. They learn the voice of the Spirit, and they obey it, but they are content and satisfied with what they have. They don’t trust God enough to believe there must be more than what they have. They are honorable, but not valiant. They obtain some of God’s glory, but do not open their eyes fully (see D&C 76:75-79).

There are those who trust God fully. These inherit celestial glory. There is nothing that can happen to these people that would cause them to doubt God. There is nothing that God can ask them that they would not obey. There is no limit to their seeking more light and truth, and no limit in their obedience. They are just men made perfect—just, because they reconcile themselves completely to what God teaches them, and perfect because God teaches them all things.

You’ll notice that these degrees of trust are not evenly spaced. Celestial trust is much much greater than terrestrial trust, which is much much greater than telestial trust. If we were to place these on a continuum, the spacing between these levels would not be even.

As Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6) Why couldn’t mankind do it without him? Joseph Smith said.

God has more light than any man. Without his offering us light, we could not acquire more. God instituted laws in order to enable mankind to advance towards his character and knowledge. God’s commandments have at least four functions.

They expand your awareness by explaining properties of reality that you are not presently aware of. They teach you good and evil beyond your present understanding. They provide support and stability to you as you extend your awareness so that you are not overcome by the revelation of what you previously did not know. They protect you from negative consequences and help you obtain positive consequences of awareness beyond your present comprehension.

We see an example of each of these things when Adam and Eve were instructed by God prior to their expulsion from Eden. God gave them new commandments that did each of the above. For instance, he instructed them on how to sacrifice animals even before they could fully comprehend the purpose (see point 4).

The pattern and purpose of God giving new or expanded commandments is found throughout the scriptures and in the lives of every person who seeks God. Like scriptural personalities, every time you have a new level of encounter with God, you will receive new or expanded commandments. Whenever anyone attains a greater level of awareness, God gives them new or expanded commandments.

The commandments, then, aren’t ends in themselves, but means for developing greater capacity for truth. The relationship of commandments to awareness is like the foundation to the height of the building. A foundationless building is very limited in height. The stronger the foundation, the higher you can build the building.

The Lord created this earth to “prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Abraham 3:25). Some have erroneously understood that the principle test of mortality is to see how you act in the absence of direction from God. This is simply not so. The test of mortality is to see how you act in relation to direction from God.

The Lord’s commandments are much broader than the explicit “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” found in the scriptures. The Lord’s instructions are the guidance provided by each person’s individual, sincere, best estimate of the Lord’s will for everything in their lives.

How do you know whether you are progressing in your acquisition of truth? You should receive commandments that expand or replace your previous understanding of God’s will: “That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.” (D&C 50:24) God reveals new or expanded commandments at every stage of awareness.

You should be learning. You should find yourself with greater trust in God. You should find your character is more like his, and less like yours used to be.

You should find yourself able to conquer things that previously challenged you: “And again, verily I say unto you, and I say it that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from among you.” (D&C 50:25) As you grow in your understanding of truth, the power of illusion over you wanes, until you conquer all things.

There is a finite amount of truth pertaining to our earthly existence. This is the amount of truth we have to obtain to overcome all things in this life, and is the quantity of truth corresponding to the telestial kingdom. That quantity of truth is far less than the total amount of truth that is available in this life.

Outside of this mortal existence, our awareness is limited to the range of light and truth available in the kingdom we are quickened by; it is limited to the level of trust in God that we acquired in this life.

The maximum level of telestial truth is important. This is the level called “all things” in the scriptures. This is what is described as a “fullness of truth” in the scriptures (see D&C 93:26). It is an understanding of this quantity of truth that all Christians seek, or ought to. This is because possessing this fullness of truth is exactly what is required for salvation. In fact, it is the very definition of salvation.

Everyone who dies will be resurrected, and everyone who is resurrected will instantly be exposed to this maximal level of truth pertaining to this earth. The state of those who have not “overcome all things” (assimilated all truth ordained by God for us to receive) is called the fires of hell. This state is a reaction to unprepared exposure to all truth pertaining to this earth. The Lord said: “my blood shall not cleanse them if they hear me not.” (D&C 29:17) This suffering is what those who are “saved” are saved from.

One must obtain and assimilate telestial truth in order to be “saved.” The set of commandments corresponding to that kingdom must be obtained and obeyed.

No one forces you to become aware of and assimilate this level of truth. You have to do it willingly: “Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light.” (D&C 93:31)

What is it like to seek to obtain at least telestial awareness while still in this life? It is like being a gardener in a temperate zone, where summer frosts are rare, who actively researches how to garden in more northern climates, where summer frosts happen all the time, when he knows that he will have to move there eventually and where he is going there is no internet or books to describe how to do it.

Some mistakenly think of the Garden of Eden as paradise. When Adam and Eve broke God's command, it was not because their character had changed. Their behavior was the manifestation of their character in a new, expanded awareness. It was how they responded to more information than they had previously. Eden was not a paradise; it was a bubble of ignorance.

What actually changed when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? Did the garden actually change? The world? Or was it simply that a greater awareness of the chaos that existed outside of the garden penetrated into it? Recall that Genesis begins not with order but with chaos. Order is not the default state of things. Chaos is.

It takes an enormous amount of trouble to derive order from chaos, and even then the order is a small island in a limitless sea. God spoke and chaos yielded to him because of what he had already done and become. When Adam came along, he was placed in a relatively small, confined area that was not the absence of chaos, but a bubble inside of it—a bubble where, through immense hidden effort, chaos was hidden through ignorance. Even inside of the garden, chaos reigned, but in a way that was too difficult to detect in the eyes of a neophyte like Adam. Satan showed up, and the tree that could radically rip away that bubble was there from the beginning.

In this life, a great deal of the natural consequences of our actions, thoughts, and desires are graciously withheld. Like in the Garden of Eden, we are placed in a situation where we can choose to remain insulated from a much greater scope of truth.

In this life, we can hide from the truth. We can shield our ignorance with illusion and thereby avoid correction. But 1) this does not shield us from the consequences of ignorance, and 2) when we die, we are fully exposed to things as they are, with no shield of ignorance.

You didn't come to this world to be comforted in illusion. You came here to acquire greater light and truth. The sand is running through the hourglass. Your satisfaction here and hereafter will be determined by one thing: how hard did you try to acquire further light and truth? You control the flow, 100%. Realize that the more you constrain that flow, the less joy you will have in this life and after this life.

We can choose to remain blind to the consequences of our lack of truth, or we can embrace truth and seek out as much as we can obtain in this life.

God knows everything. He understands everything that is going to happen, why it is going to happen, and why it is good and bad. We know very little. Everything we cannot predict and cannot understand signals to us that there is more for us to learn before we know all things pertaining to this life.

This portion of knowledge may seem enormous and out of our reach, but it will be revealed to everyone sooner or later. The only question is when.

After this life, we shall be “taken home to that God who gave [us] life...to be judged according to [our] works, according to the law and justice.” (Alma 40:11; 42:23) We shall see God in the midst of his creation and glory, and contemplate his holiness, perfections and attributes. We shall, likewise, see ourselves as we truly are, in juxtaposition with God, and comprehend to what degree we have submitted to those laws he has set in place for our continual existence, progress, and happiness. In God's presence we shall be exposed to a perfect knowledge of all truth pertaining to this existence and, if we have not already repented, “we shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness.” (2 Nephi 9:14) We shall thus be led to exclaim: “Holy, holy are thy judgments, O Lord God Almighty.” (2 Nephi 9:46) This will be a dreadful event for those who have not obtained and reconciled themselves to all truth pertaining to this existence.

Preparing ourselves for that knowledge now will prevent us from suffering indescribable pain then. This is what it means to overcome all things, to become aware of and capable of living according to God’s character in the midst of a full awareness. To overcome all things is to acquire sufficient light and truth that nothing on earth has power to decrease the trust you have in God. When you reach this point, nothing on earth can dissuade you from believing in and obeying him in all things. To overcome all things is to see things sufficiently as they are to understand what improves and what deteriorates, what leads to life and what leads to death. Because these associations are contextual, overcoming all things includes gaining an awareness that encompasses everything this world has to offer.

This exposure to a fullness of the truth pertaining to this sphere need not wait until you die. Ideally, you will have obtained this level of awareness and reconciled yourself to it before then.

We can be exposed to the fire of the knowledge of God during this life in many ways, but all of it includes the revelation of more truth than we possess, and our reconciling ourselves to it. This exposure can be a major spiritual event. For Alma, his exposure to a greater degree of truth came all at once.

Similarly, Daniel was given a glimpse of this quantity of light when a glorious angel appeared to him.

Note the effect of the glory of the angel on Daniel. Everything he thought was good in him was transformed into corruption, and the change was so drastic that it robbed him of strength. The angel’s light had the effect of revealing the incorrect and incomplete awareness in Daniel, which in turn caused his understanding of good and evil to shift radically. Also note that his companions, who were in the same room with him, did not see the angel. Still, the unseen glory was sufficient to cause them to quake and flee and hide.

In addition to major, all-at-once events, you are constantly exposed to opportunities to discern and reconcile to smaller packets of truth. Paul explained that there is a time when.

This trial by fire happens in a dramatic way on the day of judgment. In a smaller way, life provides its own purging fires that happen from time to time. It happens to all, no matter whether they want to recognize the process and purpose or not. The fire declares the worth of what we are, because it purges anything that is an illusion, and only what is real remains. We ought not love anything that is in this world, but all those who are here love a great deal. These are matters of the heart, and like the difference between the blind and sighted, our attachment to things of this world are sometimes only revealed when God takes them away. His taking them away doesn't have to be—and rarely is—through dramatic, external events. Many times he can modify our situation regarding the attachment so as to show us just how incapable it is to be relied upon. If we rely on other people, perhaps he arranges for them to let us down. If we rely on food, perhaps he arranges for a disease to prevent us from enjoying it. If we rely on work, perhaps he arranges for a hostile situation there or increased family need for our time. If we rely on money, perhaps he will take it away. If we rely on a church, perhaps he will show us serious problems with its dogma. And so on.

Why subject yourself to the fire before it comes for you? Well, for starters, because it will come for you, again and again. If you know the enemy is going to attack you, why wait until it is on the horizon to fortify your position? You waste precious resources and will be less prepared than you otherwise would. What if the difference between victory and defeat lies in the time you squandered?

One lesson from the Garden of Eden is that whatever peace you have in your life dangles from a thread, and the slightest drop from the sea of chaos that surrounds you can cut that thread and rip out everything you think you know. It doesn't matter how beautiful or permanent your Eden may seem, chaos is waiting right outside, and will eventually show up, just like Satan did, and reveal all the cracks in what you think you know.

Why else? Because, as Paul says, whatever survives the fire becomes a reward. It is scary to offer what you hold dear to critical inspection. But, consider that there are only two possible outcomes. If it survives the inspection, you can be even more confident in it. If it does not, of what value is it, anyway?

By discovering the parts within us that are not yet ready to withstand the fire, we are shown what else we need to do to overcome all things.

At some point before the second coming of Christ, God will expose the earth to more of the consequences of our lack of truth. The Lord describes this throughout scripture. One of the phrases he uses is “saving the righteous, even by fire”.

Everything in our modern world hangs by a thread of God’s miraculous grace. We live in peace beyond the capacity of our political system. We live in freedom from natural disaster beyond what our wickedness supports. We live in prosperity beyond what our ignorance of and disobedience to God’s commands deserves. How will the Lord show the consequences of our lack of truth? He will gradually remove the unnatural easing of the consequences of our lack of truth.

The time is coming when an awareness of the portion of truth pertaining to this sphere will be universal. The true nature of this fallen world will be revealed. It is much, much worse than what you perceive now. God will kick out the crutches he has gracefully provided, and the world will see what man and nature are without an overflow of grace from God.

Why will he do this? To bless the righteous. As those who love God increase in light and truth, the wicked will increase in opposing them. Eventually, those who love God will live sufficient light and truth that the wicked will be driven to kill them. Many will die according to God's purposes, but some must be preserved. God will increase the level of chaos to a) allow further progress among the righteous until they achieve Zion and b) to preserve the righteous from the wicked.

He will save the righteous, even by fire. Save them from what? The persecution and effects of wickedness. How? Like the friends of Daniel, he will put you right into the hottest part of the fire. He will shake the righteous as much as the wicked. The difference will not be in the exposure to consequences but the preparation for and the survival of the consequences.

As God exposes this earth to more and more of the chaos that he is currently shielding us from, like a baker folds eggs into dough, all the glory of the world will be shown to be worthless.

How is he going to strengthen you to stand in that fire?

He is going to shake you. He is shaking you already. What does it mean to be shaken? It means exposing more awareness, more of the chaos, until the order is overwhelmed and the principles you think you know fail. They fail to explain your observations, they fail to give you the power to maintain what is inside of you in spite of whatever is outside of you. You might lose your job. You might lose a child. You might get bone cancer. In life, your state of mind depends on oh so many things and people, and all of them are far more delicate than you care to consider. By design, this world will rip each and every one of those pillars out from under you, sooner or later. Some of the stoutest people turn into jelly when death stares them in the face. Whatever your Achille’s heel is, life will find it sooner or later. Even if we persist in our illusions in death, we will soon be shaken violently from them when we stand before the judgment bar. In the presence of God, we will not be able to help seeing things as they really are. All the illusions will be ripped away from us.

How are you going to outlast the shaking? You have to trust him, and you have to learn from him. You are going to be ripped apart. You think you know what it means to suffer, but you have no idea what it means. You think you know what it means to be lonely, but you have no idea what loneliness means. You think you know what unconditional love means, but you have no idea. Not yet. But you will learn all these things. You will be thrown into the fire, and he will be right there next to you. As you ponder his character, and how he not only endures but thrives in this chaos, you will realize how you can acquire or modify your principles to become more like him. You will learn to delight in the shaking, because you will learn that it is the only way to grow closer to God, and that it is the best way to help others.

Get to the point where all things, no matter how awful, are present before you.

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.

Some people are very concerned with being in the presence of God. In reality, this isn’t the challenge. Anyone at any level of awareness can be in the presence of God if they just obey their best understanding of God’s will. The quantity of God’s glory that you can endure is limited by the degree of awareness you are reconciled to. The goal is to obtain and reconcile to all of the awareness God can provide you. It is only by doing this that you can be a joint heir with Christ, and enjoy the presence of the Savior and the Father to the full extent. That is the reason you were born, not to merely recover the state of reconciled ignorance that existed before the fall of Adam and Eve. The disciples on the road to Emmaus were in the presence of God, but his glory was so stripped down that it was not measurably different than being in anyone else’s presence.

In heaven, you are surrounded by those who obey the same law as you do. Everything you know of is bounded by the law of your current kingdom. You don’t have to worry about any of the consequences of lower orders of law. You achieve a state of rest, because you are free from any trials that would test your trust in God.

You are free from any trials because you can’t perceive the limitations of your current level of light and truth. Recall that Adam and Eve were not granted a means to acquire a level of awareness beyond their current level of trust in God in the Garden of Eden. They had to partake of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil in order to do that.

In the garden, Adam and Eve were naked, but they were not aware of that fact until they ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. When we think of this event, we think of sin entering the world. This is true, but oversimplified. What actually changed? Before the fruit, they chose to disobey God. It was not impossible to disobey God before they ate the fruit. Eating the fruit did not enable disobedience to God, because it was already possible. What changed then? They were already naked, but they did not realize what nakedness was. It was neutral, unrecognized. They were unaware. After the fruit, their perception of reality increased. They could now perceive more than they did previously. Did they perceive everything all at once? No, they did not, as noted by Eve’s comment afterward about their experience being good in the end. Eating the fruit opened a gateway to perception of reality beyond whatever they perceived before.

Heaven is like the Garden of Eden in the sense that you can’t perceive the limitations of the level of awareness you possess.

Hell is not some arbitrary punishment. It is the experience of enduring a realization of reality beyond the degree that you can endure. It is the removal of all illusions and the revelation of all hidden things pertaining to our creation. “Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.” (Job 26:6) The happiness of heaven is not some arbitrary reward. It is to possess the capability to endure reality.

The torment of hell is within a man—it is his internal reaction to external truths he is unprepared to bear.

The themes enumerated here are plentifully taught throughout scripture. With these in mind, consider a deeper and more correct interpretation of what you’ve previously read and reread.

Jacob wrote: “hearken unto my words; arouse the faculties of your souls; shake yourselves that ye may awake from the slumber of death; and loose yourselves from the pains of hell that ye may not become angels to the devil, to be cast into that lake of fire and brimstone which is the second death.” (Jacob 3:11) He was inviting them to arouse their capacity to increase their awareness and escape from the default condition of hell that results when the unprepared are exposed to the full weight of the fullness of truth pertaining to earth.

Alma said: “may the Lord grant unto you repentance, that ye may not bring down his wrath upon you, that ye may not be bound down by the chains of hell, that ye may not suffer the second death.” (Alma 13:30) To be bound by the chains of hell is to realize your subjection to the truth pertaining to this earth when it is revealed to you, which can only be overcome by acquiring and submitting to the light and truth God provides to all who will seek it.

This is the same dichotomy illustrated by Lehi who said.

Jacob summed all of this up when he described the unsolicited awareness of all at the judgment day, the conditions of preparation, and the outcome of each party.

Fallen mortal bodies are required to perceive additional light and truth. By nature, we will make mistakes in how we interpret what we perceive: as good or as evil. Our mortal bodies are a channel to our souls, and are a capacitor that either adds or subtracts light and truth from our spirits. When we die, this link is severed, and the growth stops. While we are absent a mortal body, we can still learn, but only within our current level of light and truth. While we can come to the point where we are reconciled to God at the level of light we have received, we cannot gain a greater state of awareness.

Thus, the task of mortality is to gain as much light and truth as we can while we can. We voluntarily subscribe to our eternal state through our attitude towards the acquisition and assimilation of truth in this life. This is why our mortal lives are called the “day of probation,” where how much truth we acquire and assimilate determines where and how we live after this life: “the day should come that they must be judged of their works, yea, even the works which were done by the temporal body in their days of probation.” (1 Nephi 15:32) This is why the Lord said of his own mortal life: “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.” (John 9:4)

This life is the time to reconcile to a level of “kingdom” trust in God.

The inability to become aware of higher levels of truth after death is the point of the parable of the ten virgins.

These women knew they would need light when they were called—all of them brought lamps. They also all had oil. The “foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them” shouldn’t be misinterpreted to mean that they literally had no oil, as they were clearly burning their lamps when they went to sleep, and therefore said “our lamps are gone out” upon waking up, not “our lamps need to be lit for the first time.” It would be not foolish but ridiculous to carry an empty oil lamp, as possession of the lamp would indicate an intent to use it. So the foolish virgins brought no extra oil with them. We learn from the phrase “our lamps are gone out” that you burn oil as you wait. The wise virgins brought sufficient oil with them that they had extra for when the bridgegroom came. In this parable, the bridegroom’s arrival is death, when you can no longer add oil to your lamp.

The Lord once taught.

The night is death. The light of this world is the Lord Jesus as experienced in your mortal life. Though God exists just as much in the afterlife as here, your awareness level can’t progress after you die.

Though you can’t progress to a higher level of awareness, you can fulfill what remains to be learned in your current level of awareness. The Lord says that “all kingdoms have a law given.” (D&C 88:36) What is a kingdom?

A kingdom is a discrete approximation of truth, a set level of awareness on the infinite continuum of truth.

If heaven is a state where a man’s knowledge places him beyond the power of anything pertaining to this sphere, hell is the condition of those with anything less. Hell is to be subjected to the minimal threshold of heavenly knowledge without having acquired and assimilated it into your character, something that can only be done in this life.

The acquisition of sufficient light and truth to overcome the fire of hell is inseparable from trust in God. This is an attribute that can only be increased in mortality, where God’s glory and power is not perceived by the flesh. This is how his glory becomes our glory, and it was demonstrated when Peter tried to walk on water. Christ called him to walk on the turbulent sea—something that was an apt example of the vast unknown knowledge pertaining to this earth. As Peter trusted God, he was able to overcome the unknown. As his trust waned, so did his capacity to overcome. The Lord taught that our adherence to him will determine our capacity to prevail against the world.

We absolutely should trust the Lord in all things. He took upon him all our afflictions and sins. He knows precisely what faces us, because he went through it. How exactly did the Lord take upon him our afflictions and sins? Revelation provides the capability of vicariously experiencing the same things that someone would experience who is physically in the experience. As we increase in light and truth, we are exposed to a greater awareness of these things, and it is no different than if we had really experienced them. Throughout his life he was exposed to more and more of these things as he increased in experience with the Father. In the garden of Gethsemane he was made aware of everything left pertaining to this mortal sphere—what God himself only knows. Being exposed to it in a mortal body would kill anyone who did not hold his life in his own hand. He chose to endure it, having been prepared for this point through a sinless life, robbing death of any avenue of overcoming his flesh. Awareness, once obtained, does not go away except through disobedience to the Father. Jesus remained perfectly reconciled to the Father until the end. This means that his suffering continued after his prayer in Gethsemane. Until the moment of his death, he carried this burden. The scourging, crowning, carrying of the cross, nailing to the cross, and hanging on the cross were made unbearably more excruciating by the weight of his awareness and the perceived absence of the Father. This final test was what his entire life had led up to—the environment where he could show that nothing that earth possessed was capable of making him lose trust in the Father, and that his trust was not a result of special attention from the Father (that is, cheating). By what he did, he proved that it was possible for a man to endure an awareness of everything the world had to offer, and still trust the Father perfectly. The Lord maintained perfectly godly character in spite of a perfect awareness of all chaos pertaining to our present scope.

What does it mean to stand in the presence of God? It means to be capable of being exposed to the same degree of awareness of chaos that God is, and still maintain the character he has. Through how we live here, we can either become as he is, and withstand the flames of awareness, or we can be overcome by them and remain in perpetual suffering. Those things that can endure a greater awareness, that have a “law” or means of understanding advanced enough to overcome the greater awareness, will remain. Maintain the character of God, as far as you understand it, in any situation. A full life is full of suffering, because growth requires finding the cracks in our model of the world, and it always hurts to find out that your expectations of reality are wrong. When you overcome something, you either gain the context to realize why it is necessary, even if it hurts, or you learn that its negative aspects were based on illusion.

Chapter 5: Embracing the Truth

It ought to be self-evident that anything that is true is beneficial, and anything that is false is of less value than what is true. However, the way almost everyone lives suggests that it is anything but self-evident. We tend to view life—others, ourselves, our environments—as normative. We introspect based on what we wish we had seen, what we hope we are, and what we hope for the future. This leads to many problems. In fact, perhaps it is the leading cause of problems in this world.

Consider all the problems that are, at their root, caused by a normative bias. All human disagreements are, at their root, an unwillingness by one or both parties to see things as they really are. All individual weakness is, at its root, an unwillingness to see things as they really are.

We have to learn to see things as they really are, not how we hope they are. In a nutshell, human reality is that the heart of mankind is evil by default, and that the world we live in has unavoidable constraints. Therefore, almost any solution to almost any problem will take the form of an imperfect but optimal approach built around the constraints of reality and based on an acknowledgement of the predictably wicked behavior of man.

Do not be shocked at how far afield this approach might seem from the simplistic notion that if everyone would just follow the Ten Commandments, mankind would be instantly ushered into paradise. It was the Lord himself who, when asked why Moses gave permission for the Israelite men to divorce their wives, replied “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives” (Matthew 19:8). His disciples responded by complaining about how his suggestion of a more insoluble marriage made it undesirable. Instead of backtracking or revealing some secret about how delightful permanent marriage is, he said “All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given” and suggested a variety of ways to instead be celibate (Matthew 19:10-12).

God works with reality, not against it.

Awareness is a finite estimate of an infinite reality. Therefore, our understanding of reality is always an approximation of actual reality. Even when we do our best to sincerely conform to our current understanding of reality, we will encounter disappointment by learning that reality is different than we had supposed. This type of disappointment, however, is a blessing. It is disillusionment—the discovery of the incorrectness of a previously held belief.

Disillusionment is not failure to obtain what you seek. Instead, disillusionment is discovery. It is the discovery that what you desire cannot be found in how you were seeking it.

Disillusionment occurs when increased awareness reveals that your previous perceptions were incorrect or incomplete. Of these two, being incorrect seems to be at least as common as having an incomplete understanding, as most new truth intersects with previously held truth.

It is a step closer to obtaining what you desire by learning another place where it isn’t to be found. It is moving your aim closer to what you actually seek.

Disillusionment means the removal of illusions. The price for knowledge is disillusionment. The price for continual knowledge acquisition is continual disillusionment.

Like babies sitting on a parent’s lap, we know nothing of the glory that awaits those that love God. He will reveal it line upon line. That process necessarily includes disillusionment, but disillusionment is a gift, not a punishment. Solomon said get wisdom with all your getting. You should get disillusionment with all your getting. It is the best thing you can do.

Increased awareness is always a blessing, and it should be sought after, not hid from.

When Jesus told the apostles of his impending crucifixion, they said.

The apostles genuinely thought they were converted, but the Lord knew that they would shortly flee from him. The Lord allowed the apostles to believe all sorts of things that were not exactly correct. If they had just asked him, he would have corrected them. What does he know about you or me? What is he willing to tell us if we just ask?

We know that “...the word of God...divide[s] asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead[s] the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked.” (Helaman 3:29) Can he guide you across the gulf of misery if you don’t allow him to correct your path? The Lord said.

To the extent that we seek and obey him, he will send the fruits of the light and truth we accept into our lives. However, the presence of fruit does not prove that there are no higher fruits available. To all who will submit to his purging, he offers higher blessings. These stronger fruits will come the same way the first came, through obtaining and living his word—new words, higher words—words that extend beyond or replace what we know. Staying on the path, or continual progress towards God, requires continuous change. We stay on the strait and narrow path by accepting new truth that is offered to us. The path is not a destination. It is a process.

The process is always the same: be open minded enough to believe something could be true, then try it and follow the fruits. You will receive new lessons, new words.

We do not stay on the path to God by staying the same. We must feast upon the word (or in other words, get more of it!) and endure to the end (or in other words, live according to what you have received without exception). Staying the same is to accept our present distance from God, forever. Those who turn away from God's pruning step off of the strait and narrow way. Their detour may be temporary or permanent. They re-enter the path the same way they stayed on it—by obtaining and obeying new truth.

A young man who came to the Lord asked him what good thing he could do to gain eternal life (see Matthew 19). The Lord replied: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” (Matthew 19:21) Given the man’s shock and disdain when Jesus told him to give everything he had away, it is apparent that he was expecting God to tell him something aligned with what he already believed.

It is pointless to seek for God to tell you what you already think you know. If you go to God, you ought to assume he will tell you something that you don’t know. There are only two types of information that you don’t know: something that adds to what you know, or something that contradicts what you know.

As we see in the exchange with the young man, the Lord Jesus always tries to teach things softly at first, and usually doesn't go past that unless we ask him to. Because we don’t, we miss most of God’s attempts to teach us. New truth can’t come without increased capacity to obey. Heed and diligence are required to increase our capacity to obey as yet unknown commandments.

Like this man, we ought to persist with God, begging him to be blunt with us in our oblivious ignorance. We ought to plead with God daily to reveal more light and truth to us. He will answer that prayer. He can do this in many ways. He will speak to your mind and your heart. God can send an angel to teach you, or come to you himself. You may hear an audible voice. You may be led to a particular scripture. You may be prompted to investigate certain books or Bible translations. You may be prompted to look at certain videos or websites. You may have a gospel conversation with a new acquaintance or an old friend. It is impossible to list every possibility. Have an open mind.

By default, we are separated from God. Unlike in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve dwelled in the literal presence of God (they saw and spoke to him regularly), each of us is born into a situation where we do not see God, and we are not aware of his voice.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the process by which we become reconciled to God, regaining the relationship with God that Adam and Eve had in the garden of Eden, but retaining an expanded awareness. A key part of this process is his commandments—progressive instructions that give us increasingly more accurate estimations of his character, so that we can become more and more like he is.

Because the gospel is a process of becoming more like he is, and because our default state is to be opposite to how he is, we ought to understand that the gospel is the process of being corrected, over and over again.

You can predict how far a person will go in their life's purpose by seeing how they react to the light, or to correction. Unfortunately, just as the default state of man is to be separated from God, the default state of man is to “sit in darkness,” or not come to the light. This manifests in their refusing to consider something better, or actively fighting against it.

Very, very few people rejoice in correction. The rareness of this quality alone sufficiently explains why so few achieve celestial glory. It is by far the rarest thing on earth. Most of us bumble through life completely unaware of the sources of further light around us. Most of us run away from the very things we need most in life.

We can't progress in ignorance. It is better to know of our faults with God rather than incorrectly believe we are righteous.

If we submit to the Spirit, which is the reason we are here, we will find that it leads us to places we never supposed. God will shed light on all the dark corners of our character, and we will find ourselves traversing wave after wave of personal, deep change. As we endure more and more polishing—and outright rebuilding—we will acquire and assimilate more and more truth.

Your greatest barrier to progression is an inflated perception of your true state. Your perception of available truth is far less than reality. In all likelihood, you believe you have much more truth than you actually do. If you turn to God and seek more truth will all your heart, might, mind, and strength, he will show you what you lack. “He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.” (Daniel 2:22) He artfully orchestrates each life to abundantly display what we lack in order to best help us turn to him to improve.

The Lord knows everything; we know nothing. The Lord is all loving; we love wickedness. Do we believe this? If so, should we not assume that God’s path will diverge from what we would choose for ourselves if left to ourselves? And is not any such deviation a blessing?

The key to expanding our knowledge is to trust God and seek him without reservation.

We can become aware of all things, but it will take a great deal of time and effort. Until then we need—and ironically, can only get there by developing—tremendous trust in God.

Trust in God is shown by relentlessly reconciling yourself to the light that you have. You admit that you don’t know a great deal, and therefore are undoubtedly committing to paths that are less than optimal, but you understand what it means to do your best, and as you do it unfailingly, you can trust that any proximate outcome is exactly what is needed to help you get to something better. This kind of attitude provides peace far beyond what is available in the world. It is the peace Jesus promised in what seems like the contradictory situation of bearing the yoke his way of living provides.

There is absolutely no reason to fear the truth. Too many people fear what God might reveal to them. They do not know or believe that he is perfectly loving and all wise. Instead, they react to further light and truth as Herod reacted when he heard the prophecy of the birth of Jesus: “he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” (Matthew 2:3) Both the Roman governor and the ruling religionists feared an upset of their current system. If they had trusted God, they would have rejoiced no matter the predicted change, as whatever God sends to those that love him is uniquely designed to maximize their happiness.

God’s mission is to free us from the prison of ignorance and incorrectness. Isaiah wrote that the mission of the Lord’s servant is: “To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.” (Isaiah 42:7) When the Lord performed his mortal mission “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.” (Matthew 4:16)

To sit in darkness is described here as being a prisoner in a dungeon. Those who ask, “why would I want to subject myself to disillusionment?” are like prisoners in a dungeon who ask, “why would I want to get out of here?” The darkness allows them to ignore their plight. They do not see their surroundings or their shackles.

Learn to trust God and submit yourself to his correction.

It has been said that nothing real can be threatened and that nothing unreal exists. What are you afraid of losing, if by acquiring truth all you can lose is what is false?

People who do not yet trust God have a list of things God has commanded people to do in the past that they would never do. Sometimes, they get rid of that list by transferring it to a list of things they believe God would never command them to do. There is no difference. These people sometimes say things like, “the God I believe in would never command me to ___.” In a way, they are right. As Jesus said, “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what [whom] we worship.” (John 4:22) We know him because we have met him, and this is always the result of those who worship God in spirit and in truth.

Those who do not yet trust God believe in a God of their own creation. He does not have power to reveal himself to them, and he does not have power to save. We are saved as a result of knowing the true God, not believing in a God of our own creation. We are saved because he possesses intelligence that exceeds our own, not because he matches what we in our fallen state consider to be right or wrong.

Ironically, those who put God in a box do so out of fear. They fear that if they let God out of their boxes, he would end up less loving, less merciful, or less good than they presently imagine him to be. That is ironic because it is only by removing your limitations of him that you can see just how loving, merciful, and good he really is! This realization far exceeds anything you can imagine when you box him up in false traditions. If you look at every person in the scriptures who came to know God, you will struggle to find someone who found him less godly upon getting to know him. Instead, you see the opposite. You see deep, loving, worshipful reverence increase in proportion to how well someone knows God.

Putting God in a box does not protect you from disappointment. It keeps you from a portion (a considerable portion) of his goodness and glory. You may have experienced God in some way—spiritual gifts, revelation, joy, or even visitations—but your experiences are limited and diminished compared to what he could show you if you were less inhibited by your preconceived notions. In the scriptures, there are those who had miracles, those who had revelation, those that experienced great joy, those that saw him, even those that touched him. But of the set of everyone who experienced God in some way, how many were able to abide in his glory? The answer is surprisingly few. With almost every experience, he held something back, sometimes considerably so. Every commandment you refuse to consider diminishes your potential glory, but it also diminishes the quantity of the Lord's glory you are able to abide. For each thing “your God would never ask you to do,” you remove yourself from the opportunity to experience that much more of him.

I believe in a God who killed perhaps billions of people in a worldwide flood. I believe in a God who commanded Abraham and Isaac to lie. I believe in a God who allowed Hagar to be cast away. I believe in a God who commanded Moses to slay cities of men, women, children, and animals, none of which had ever previously met their attackers. I believe in a God who chose to heal only one of the countless handicapped at the pool of Bethesda. I believe in a God who considers heeding a single prophetic dream sufficient to decide between the life and death of millions of people. I believe in a God who called David, a man who killed Uriah to cover the adulterous relationship with his wife, a man after his own heart. I believe in a God who asked Nephi to kill Laban.

Does your theology account for all of these things? If not, you must confess that this God is not the God you worship. Not yet, at least. What are you doing about that?

Chapter 6: Loving a Lie

Our beliefs—what we really believe, not what we would like to believe or what we say we believe—dictate our actions and our feelings. They can't be separated from each other.

Our beliefs are wholly up to us. We can choose to believe whatever we wish, no matter how impossible, false, ineffectual, or unwise they may be. Our beliefs can come from many places, including society and our carnal desires.

Our natural observations and inclinations are wholly insufficient to instruct us in the ways of higher order truth.

This is why we are commanded to “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” (John 7:24) Recall that righteous means that which improves. God is the one and only source of truth, because everything that improves comes from him, and everything that comes from him improves.

When we choose to believe that which is contrary to what God has manifested to us, we choose to love a lie. Loving a lie is the opposite of embracing the truth. It means acting contrary to what you know, or continuing in ignorance when you have the means to learn more.

So often, we find ourselves loving a lie by choosing to remain in a belief that is contradicted by reality, whether through ignorance or willful denial. We act like children who play house on what they must realize is a fake plastic kitchen.

What are these lies? Really, they are all subsumed in one lie: that good is evil, or that evil is good. Specific manifestations of this lie include when we act in opposition to what we know is good; when we refuse to test something new that might be good; when we ignore a revealed counterexample or inadequacy in our presently held belief; when we believe we live in an unconstrained world where we can both do and receive what we please; when we focus on the symptoms of our beliefs without ever questioning or changing our beliefs.

Satan is described as a liar from the beginning. This isn’t because everything he says and does is a lie, but because everything he says and does is based on a lie—the lie that good is evil, or evil is good.

Satan’s modus operandi is to convince others what he believes—that outcomes can be obtained external to the law that governs all things. But this is false. It is contrary to reality—things as they really are. It is contrary to God’s word, because God embraces reality. It is contrary to the light. It is contrary to the system set up from the foundation of the world.

Lies cannot improve us. They are ineffectual, or vain, at best, and at worst, can cause great destruction in our lives and in the lives of others— suffering that is completely preventable if we will only listen to God.

When we believe lies, we empower the devil. We waste our lives in the counterfeit pursuit of things that cannot bring us the deep satisfaction that can only be won in toiling pursuit of the truth. We are fully occupied and divert our time, energy, and talents to that which is of no worth. “Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy. Hearken diligently unto me, and remember the words which I have spoken; and come unto the Holy One of Israel, and feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness.” (2 Nephi 9:51)

When we love lies, we deprive ourselves of what we need for spiritual, physical, and other sustenance, and end up malnourished in every sense. “O, my beloved brethren, remember the awfulness in transgressing against that Holy God, and also the awfulness of yielding to the enticings of that cunning one. Remember, to be carnally-minded is death, and to be spiritually-minded is life eternal.” (2 Nephi 9:39)

No amount of wishing something is true will make it so. Addictions, false traditions, sacred cows are all manifestations of the same underlying problem: loving a lie. When you comprehend the truth, these things lose all their power. The problem, though, is that we cling so tightly to what we wish was true, ignoring the unavoidable pain that accompanies the comprehension that they aren’t, that we will endure any evidence to the contrary—no matter how strong it is—fighting it to the death to avoid a realization of the truth.

Why do we love a lie, when the truth is by definition more fruitful? Why do we turn away from the light? Is it not because of a lack of trust in God? Is it not because we do not really believe that he knows more than we do, and loves us more than we love ourselves?

Far too many people have beliefs that do not accord with reality as they experience it. But they choose to ignore these deviations because they can. The error of their estimate is small enough to be tolerable. Small enough to ignore. Then, invariably, life hits them with something they weren't expecting. An error too big to ignore. They have a medical emergency, lose their job, catch their spouse cheating, or find out something they thought about themselves was wrong.

When hit with an undeniable ideological contradiction, they can’t help but wonder “if this thing that I thought was so secure is in fact not so, what else might be off?” They start to doubt the very foundations of their ideologies. Most go into a tailspin of reckless behavior and emotional instability, and few recover.

These “ego deaths” are exactly what the gospel is designed to prevent—and prevention, oddly enough, is acquired through the maintenance of that very state. The Lord said: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16:25) Because our perception of reality is woefully limited, clinging to what we think we know and what we carnally desire will always result in our reliance upon some aspect of life that is anything but reliable. It may be a complete illusion, or it may be something different than we think it is. Either way, by leaning upon it, we bake “ego death” into the future. We guarantee that we will “lose [our lives].” The only way to minimize those experiences—to find our lives and keep them—is to rely upon God and only God, or in other words to reconcile ourselves completely to the light that he has revealed to us.

The word of God is crystal clear in stating that liars are thrust down to hell. This is no arbitrary punishment. Liars by definition are those who refuse to reconcile their lives to what they know. Those in this state cut themselves off from the improvement necessary to prepare for judgment.

Awareness of truth in and of itself is not the same as our reconciliation to it. Any time our character deviates from our sincere understanding of God’s character, we are out of harmony with God, and in rebellion: “Wherefore, let every man beware lest he do that which is not in truth and righteousness before me.” (D&C 50:9)

Going against the light is rebellion against God.

There is no such thing as grades of rebellion. Rebellion in even one thing makes you rebellious in all (see James 2:10).

Rebellion against God is the one and only problem in this world. Anyone who is fully reconciled to God will be saved, no matter how much light they may have. The quantity of light determines the degree of glory, not the state of salvation. You are either saved or you are not, but there are infinitely many glories, which are as diverse as the knowledge possessed by each person.

You can’t rebel against God in this life and dwell in his presence without first passing through the fires of hell, no matter how much light you have or don’t have. If we knowingly act contrary to our understanding of God’s will, we are in open rebellion against God; we are cut off from God and will be forever until we repent.

But behold, and fear, and tremble before God, for ye ought to tremble; for the Lord redeemeth none such that rebel against him and die in their sins; yea, even all those that have perished in their sins ever since the world began, that have wilfully rebelled against God, that have known the commandments of God, and would not keep them; these are they that have no part in the first resurrection. (Mosiah 15:26)

Some seek to excuse themselves in willful disobedience by claiming that the blood of Jesus will save them in spite of their sin. Jesus cannot save his people in their sins. He can only save them from their sins.

The importance of reconciliation to the light you have is immeasurable. Any degree of rebellion means you are under the control of Satan. He motivates you. He will use you to hurt those around you who try to turn to the light, and you won’t even notice it. You’ll just notice that you are angry at them (see 2 Nephi 4:13; 28:19-20). You will unknowingly go around tempting people to turn away from the light, and you won’t even realize it.

The Lord offers us escape from prison.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chapter 7: God’s Power is Truth

Because knowledge is always just a progressive noisy estimate of reality, which is infinite and unknowable, knowing something is “true” really just means believing something is true. Believing something is true requires that it: 1) is based on something you have observed, and 2) fully reconciles with everything else you have observed.

Very few people in this life live such that 1) all they believe fits these criteria, and 2) everything that fits these criteria is numbered among what they believe.

Many times, what we ask for is merely what we wish was true. Seeking what you wish without regard to what is real is what it means to lust: “...ask not, that ye may consume it on your lusts, but ask with a firmness unshaken, that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and living God.” (Mormon 9:28)

Faith is not wishing. It does not mean hoping in whatever thing you wish was true. You have to know it is true.

You can’t ask in service to the true and living God without asking what is true, and anything less than this is temptation and lust. You also can’t have a “firmness unshaken” unless what you seek is fully reconciled to what you know.

Willfully opposing your current best understanding of what is God’s will diminishes God’s power in you. Acting against what we know injects doubt into our minds. God’s power is like an electrical arc that connects him to us. You won’t get an arc on an insulated substance.

If you turn away from your sincere understanding of right and wrong, or turn away from full reconciliation to God’s will as you understand it in your acts, beliefs, desires, thoughts, etc., you lose his power. And you will also lose the truth you previously held.

You can’t believe in something if it is contrary to your understanding of reality. You can’t believe in what you ask God if you don’t believe God wants what you ask to happen. And this is no matter of wishing. You have to believe he wants it to happen, and that belief must be based on something other than your desire. You have to know enough about him that you sincerely believe he desires it, not that you do.

If you do not have direction from God—if you do not know as clearly as the day from night—what is right and what is wrong, what will lead to improvement and what will lead to degradation—do not do anything but seek until God gives you more light. You have to find concrete reasons external to you that give you the unshakeable belief that you are seeking what God wants. If you don’t have these reasons, you need to study and pray until you either find them, or find reasons why what you are asking for is not his will. Note that whether by counterexample or lack of example, you can’t have faith in something without having a reason to believe it. Not only do you need a reason to believe it, that reason must be strong enough to overcome any reason you might have not to believe it.

The Book of Mormon speaks of a time of paradise after the resurrected Lord ministered to the Nephites.

What does it mean to work miracles “in the name of Jesus”? What is the significance of the disciples doing nothing “save it were in the name of Jesus”?

What is the name of Jesus? We use names to refer to people and things. God uses names differently. He gives people names based on their role, authority, and properties. For example, Abram was named Abraham by God, which means “father of many.”

“The name of Jesus” does not refer to the word “Jesus.” Instead, it refers to his role, authority, and properties. If you do something “in the name of Jesus,” it means you are acting in complete concordance with your understanding of God’s character. It means you are acting in complete agreement with your understanding of right and wrong. It means that whatever you are doing is focused sincerely on improvement.

Who among us would not like to see the sick healed, the dead raised, the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf to hear, and every other manifestation of God’s power in our lives? Yet, there are few miracles today.

This is a critically serious problem, for “if these things have ceased, then has faith ceased also; and awful is the state of man, for they are as though there had been no redemption made.” (Moroni 7:38) Salvation requires reconciliation to our understanding of God, and absence of miracles reveals absence of reconciliation to God, which means absence of salvation. Without complete obedience to Christ, his sacrifice does not save you.

Why are there few miracles today? Because we ask amiss. We do not ask in complete reconciliation with our understanding of God’s character, and our understanding of right and wrong. This robs us of faith, because we know that we are asking something according to our will, not God’s. We doubt.

You can’t work “...a miracle in the name of Jesus save [you are] cleansed every whit from [your] iniquity.” (3 Nephi 8:1) “Every whit” means in totality. Your ability to call down miracles from heaven is directly proportional to the completeness of your reconciliation to God. If you have things in your life that are contrary to his will, as you understand it, you will not have his power in your life, and you will suffer unnecessarily.

The Lord said: “all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” (Matthew 21:22) So many have doubted God because they have believed something—so they thought—and yet not received it. In every case, this “belief” was merely wishing. What they were asking for was not reconciled to truth. They either had reason to believe that what they were asking was not in accordance with reality or they had no reason to believe that it was. It wasn’t “in the name of Jesus” because it wasn’t in accordance with their sincere understanding of what is right and wrong in context of their awareness of reality.

God’s power is truth, and truth is God’s power. You cannot convey God’s power without conveying light and truth, and you cannot convey light and truth without conveying God’s power. God’s power is 100% based on reconciliation to truth.

To know God’s will would require you to know God’s knowledge. Since any understanding of the latter is only partial, so it is with the former. The more truth you know, the more of God’s power you will see. Jesus said: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:7) To abide means to continue without fading. As we continue to seek greater understanding of reality (“if ye abide in me”), and remain reconciled to what God teaches us about it (“my words abide in you”), whatever we ask will be done.

When you are fully reconciled to God, you have the power to do what you sincerely believe God’s will to be. God’s power is found within God’s will, and God’s will can only be known to the extent that you have acquired truth.

Those who possess a little of God’s awareness will, when reconciled to it, experience a little of God’s power. God’s power is available at every level of truth. The more truth you obtain, the more of God’s power you will experience.

Ignorance is not bliss. In order to encounter greater manifestations of God’s power in your life, you must not only reconcile yourself to your present awareness of reality, but increase it.

How do you increase your awareness? Through faith.

The key to unlocking God's power in your life is to believe that he is, learn how he is, and become how he is. This requires faith. Faith is the means by which God’s power is manifested.

It is through faith that you lay hold on “every good thing.” What is every good thing? If God is the source of all that is good, it is to be more like him in what you understand, believe, desire, and are. All these things come from Christ, and the way to grow towards them is through faith.

Faith comes through a greater understanding of the will of God—a greater awareness of what is good and what is evil in a more accurate estimate of reality. Paul said.

Hearing doesn’t simply mean using your ears to receive information. It means becoming aware of something you were not previously aware of. It means noticing.

Jesus once described faith as a mustard seed, one of the tiniest seeds that grow into one of the largest trees.

What makes the tree of faith grow? Knowledge.

Too many of us write off faith as what you have when you don’t have knowledge. In reality, faith is the boundary of our perception of reality. Faith is what we are aware of that exists beyond what we see. As Paul said: “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

From this definition, we see that you can’t have faith beyond your awareness. You can’t have awareness very far beyond your knowledge. As your knowledge grows, then, your faith grows.

It is like the thin layer of liquid water that always appears on the edge of an ice block. Ice doesn’t melt from the inside out. Only the outer layer melts. Faith exists just past our knowledge. Since knowledge is expansive, the greater our knowledge, the greater the faith that can exist just past it.

Faith is the medium through which we acquire more knowledge. God reveals new truth to us in the realm of faith, and by acting on it, it becomes knowledge.

If you are to maintain—let alone grow your faith—work is required. Growth in faith requires expanded awareness. Moses did not attempt to part the Red Sea out of the blue. Instead, his parting the sea was completely aligned with his current sincere awareness of God’s will. God had previously told him that he had power to do exactly what he did (see Moses 1:25).

Faith is not and never has been a guess of what God might want you to do. Instead, it is the solid, sincere application of your knowledge of God: the present situation weighed against all your previous experiences with good and evil. You must grow in your knowledge of good and evil as your awareness grows.

The Lord said.

This law is the truth, the light, and the word. It is your discrete level of reality awareness and discernment of good and evil. The fullness of this law is the level of light and truth possessed by God.

To the degree that you possess this, you can know and do the will of God.

It is an illusion to believe that your faith can stay in a childlike state. To do so would require a static awareness. But, unless you are mentally retarded, your awareness will automatically grow as you age. Your increased observations of reality will rob you of faith unless you search in the light of Christ to develop a more sophisticated and advanced idea of good and evil. Most people do not engage in the study and prayer required to grow their understanding of good and evil. These people are very easy to pick out. They are the ones who say things like “how can God be real if babies die?” These people are almost always intellectual, yet while they readily acknowledge the sophistication of temporal knowledge through the years they spend in academic pursuits, they expect that spiritual knowledge—a domain that is greater because it encapsulates temporal knowledge—can be obtained through no effort whatsoever.

A child can have powerful faith because a child has experienced very little. Their awareness is so small that it is easy to reconcile reality to it. If they simply believe that God likes to heal people, and have a simple definition of love, they can pray with faith that a loved one will be healed, and it will happen. Even at the childlike level of awareness, most never get to the point where they are really reconciled with what they know, and therefore they lack any fruit of God’s power in their lives.

For most normally intelligent adults, reconciliation is orders of magnitude more difficult. They know that God’s love is complicated. In his wisdom, he allows suffering. Their faith must somehow reconcile all their past observations to each other, and then that perspective must be applied to the present in such a way that doubt is completely resolved. This is no passive event. This is no simple thing. Those most effective in their exercise of faith are those who have spent the most effort working through their perspective, which certainly includes study of the scriptures and prayer.

If adult faith is so much more challenging than child faith, why bother growing beyond the faith of a child? After all, great miracles can be worked by those with childlike faith. There are popular evangelical ministers who, for example, heal everyone they pray for. This is according to their simple, child-like view of God’s love and God’s will. While they are to be commended for greater faith than most of their more spiritually intelligent fellow Christians, the good they do is not the greatest good they could do.

Advanced understanding is harder. However, it also yields greater fruit. It is greater because it is more correct, and it is more correct because it is closer to God.

What does it mean to purge the vine? It means to reveal a higher level of understanding, which shows that something better than the previous fruit is available. The greater the awareness we obtain, the greater will be the manifestation of God’s power in our lives.

When we obtain greater awareness, we move past the childlike answers to complex questions. If God is the greatest, then we become better by being more like him. If he has more knowledge than us, then we become more knowledgeable by learning what he knows. For example, instead of assuming God will heal everyone who is sick, we grow in our understanding of his knowledge by recognizing that he did not heal everyone, and therefore neither should we. We seek for and obtain the reason why he does what he does, and then we grow in our capacity to do good beyond the capacity of a child.

By growing in our awareness, we grow closer and closer to the point that we will not ask that which is contrary to his will. Historic personalities that reached this point received the power to do many great miracles. One such person was Nephi, son of Helaman. To him, the Lord said.

What did the Lord mean when he said that Nephi would not ask anything contrary to his will?

The first possible meaning is that whatever Nephi would ask would be according to God’s will. In other words, In other words, Nephi’s knowledge was advanced enough and his understanding was sufficiently aligned with God’s that the two would decide situations the same way. That Nephi’s awareness of good and evil was extensive is evident from the powers that God grants to him. He gives him power to seal on earth and in heaven, power to destroy buildings, power to move mountains, and power over famines, diseases, and wars. In combination with God’s statement that Nephi would not “ask that which is contrary to [his] will,” we can see that Nephi had gained sufficient awareness that his understanding of what God would do in these significant matters was reconciled with God’s full knowledge. Thus we see that the more you know, the more you will be able to do.

The second possible meaning is that Nephi would refrain from asking anything from God that was not perfectly in alignment with his sincere, best understanding of God’s will. Nephi exercised great restraint to avoid asking anything for which he lacked sufficient knowledge to say, with surety, that what he was asking was reconciled to what he knew about God. Once someone surpasses the ignorance of awareness possessed by children, they must admit that they have no idea what God would do and why in a majority of situations. Though they can go to the scriptures and use these questions to drive an advancement of their understanding of God, they must admit that their present knowledge does not reveal to them what God would do in many situations. Therefore, they do not occupy their prayers with requests for certain outcomes in these areas, and while they probably can’t freeze their actions in all these areas, they do not attach their trust in God to any particular outcome of these events. It takes a great deal of faith to restrain one’s desires and petitions to the meager understanding you have of God’s will.

Notwithstanding your ignorance, you can exercise a fullness of faith. If you have done all you can to know him, and reconciled your life perfectly to what you know, you can exercise perfect faith in what you ask. The Lord is obligated to respond, because your reconciliation to your awareness is how you do what he says, and “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” (D&C 82:10) If you only act in accordance with your knowledge, like Nephi, you will never ask anything contrary to God’s will.

Faith is merely God’s will that hasn’t happened yet. It is the difference between what is—defined by observation—and what should be—defined by your awareness of God’s will. The more common type of faith is when you apply everything you know about God to your perception of reality and notice things that do not line up. The most explicit type of faith is when God tells you something will happen, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The fundamental principle of faith is that reality does not flow from what is seen, but that everything—including what is seen—flows from God’s word. Returning to Paul’s definition: “...faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

God’s word is the light that proceeds through all existence, yet is unnoticed by most people and fully embraced by very few: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Hebrews 11:3) It is reality to a degree far beyond what we perceive.

The basis of faith is reconciliation to the observations of reality all around us. Most people are willingly blind to what is plainly manifested all around them (see the chapter “Loving a Lie”). As long as you will not incorporate what is obviously manifested all around you, you will not see anything beyond that.

Great things can be obtained simply by reconciling yourself to seen reality. But much greater things await those who obtain and act on what is unseen.

To amplify faith, you have to augment your perception of reality to include God’s word—those things that are not yet observed but are still real. Consider the words of Paul, who taught that there were more people than can be mentioned.

These people augmented their reality to include what was not yet seen. They acted according to both what they saw and what they knew only because God had told them.

Normal people do not stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of fire, etc. When placed in the situations alluded to, they would figure that they were out of options. They would not submit to torture, mockings, scourgings, living in caves, etc., let alone find joy and satisfaction in such experiences.

When these people incorporated those things God had said, that were independent from what they had observed, their perception of reality changed, and their actions changed accordingly. Because they reconciled themselves to the fullness of their awareness (including what was not yet seen with their eyes), they were able to exercise the power of God, and see the miraculous physical manifestation of God’s power.

A willingness to incorporate a knowledge of God’s yet unmanifested will caused the Red Sea to part, the walls of Jericho to fall, the destruction of Egypt’s firstborn, the salvation of Rahab, the birth and preservation of Isaac, and many more miracles (see Hebrews 11). Incorporating it into your perception will cause miracles of equal degree.

Unbelief is the only thing that can constrain the manifestation of God’s power in your life.

We tend to think that we believe in God. And yet, our actions betray our unbelief.

If you doubt, you don't believe. If you believe, you don't doubt.

If you really believed in God, you would act far differently than you do. Is this hard to believe? If you really believed God notices every sparrow that falls to the ground, could you ever be anxious or sad about your situation? Do you really believe that all things are done in the wisdom of he who knows all things? Do you really believe that God loves you?

If you really believed Jesus, you would always act exactly like him. Do you? You would keep all of his commandments as you understand them, even in the hardest moments. Do you? You would act like he acts, you would react like he reacts. Do you? You would feel how he feels, so far as you understand. Do you?

If your answer to any of these questions is no, look no further for the difference in the degree of miracles manifested in the scriptures compared to your life.

If your answer to any of these questions is no, it is time to reconcile yourself to God.

The Lord said.

Chapter 8: Why All Truth Seekers Should Believe in Christ

There are many good people in this world. These people expend a great deal of effort and introspection in attempts to have a positive impact on the world. Religious people tend to claim that one cannot be good without being religious. For those who are, this claim is both untrue and incredibly off-putting.

If the only benefit of the gospel was to turn bad people into good people, it would not be of value to those who are already good. This chapter presents a different perspective on religion, one that suggests the gospel is also a tool for good people to become better through providing a means to become aware of additional opportunities to improve and to procure a means for making those improvements.

The purpose of this chapter is not to convince you that God exists. Rather, under the supposition that he does, it explains what role he plays in how a bad person becomes good, and how a good person becomes better.

It is difficult for someone who is invested in improvement to believe that belief in God will substantially increase their capability. Consider the following story.

When I entered high school I didn't need glasses. With each passing year, I found the chalkboards getting dustier. I had to keep moving closer, and it was annoying. At some point, after approximately 3 years, I complained. Someone suggested I needed glasses. One reason this had never crossed my mind was that I had eye checks as part of an annual physical that had not revealed degrading eyesight. The main reason I did not know I needed glasses was that I didn't comprehend what it would be like to not need glasses. I didn't know what perfect eyesight was like, so I couldn't realize what I was missing by wearing glasses.

Years later, I faced an alert order for deployment in the military. Knowing how hard it is to shoot accurately with glasses on, and knowing how pointless it is to try to shoot with a gas mask on when you require glasses, I thought it would be worthwhile to get laser eye surgery in spite of the cost and what I considered to be the cosmetic nature of the procedure. The procedure was very fast. The cover of my eyeball was opened, my vision got even blurrier than normal, some lights flashed, the doctor put an eye drop in my eye and put the flap back. Instantly, I saw perfectly— significantly more clearly than I ever had even with glasses. I actually cried because I was so astonished with how much better I could see. It was like being born again. I saw the world anew. Every morning I realized what it was like to be able to see right when I woke up. I had no idea how much clearer my perspective would be. I had no idea what I had been missing out on. If I had, I would have had the operation much sooner, and I would have been willing to pay a lot more than I did.

It is easy to preach Jesus to those who are broken and know it. It is very hard to preach Jesus to those who are already obeying that inner voice that tells them to do right. From their perspective, they can see the board fine. From their perspective, they already have their vision corrected.

Happiness is the object of the existence of man. Happiness exists in proportion to the possession of and adherence to truth. The purpose of religion is to provide a framework to discover and adhere to truth. Certainly, the many people in this world who have successfully acquired truth without belief in God prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the process is possible without belief in God. But is it optimal? In other words, the question is not whether truth—and therefore happiness—can be acquired without belief in God, but whether greater happiness is available through belief in God.

What does belief in God contribute to happiness? The differences over lack of belief include access to truth, rate of acceptance, and extent of truth.

God knows all things pertaining to our scope of existence, and therefore possesses all happiness pertaining to our scope. To the degree that we know God and are empowered to be like him, we can possess the happiness he possesses. God seeks to teach us everything he knows. He can do this to a great extent without us ever believing in him. All truth comes from God, whether the individual recognizes its source or not. However, by recognizing the source and learning the mechanism of seeking and receiving truth directly from God, one can access much more truth than is possible without belief in God.

Belief in God provides a framework for seeking and accepting truth at a greater rate than non-belief. The gospel of Jesus Christ provides an understanding of how God is—his character—as well as how we truly are—the base tendencies of human nature. It also provides tools to help us overcome our innate nature and become more like God is. Because believers understand their starting point and the end goal, they are enabled to seek and accept truth at a faster pace than non-believers. While a nonbeliever may be content with a more passive approach to self-refinement, a true believer will not rest until they have overcome the character traits, attitudes, and actions that prevent a fullness of happiness in this life and in the world to come.

Can you routinely go through a preconceived notion inventory, and totally dismantle everything you think you know, rebuilding with only those things that withstand the fire of inquiry and introspection? The prospect of such a life is unpalatable to most, including those who try to be good people.

Belief in God presupposes that God, being perfect, possesses truths that are sufficiently advanced that they would be repulsive to the natural man. Whereas non-believers might be tempted to only accept truths that are somehow tethered to their present position, believers in God ought to assume that even their most prized positions have the potential of being supplanted by higher truths, even if they cannot presently anticipate exactly what these might be.

The path to truth will undoubtedly intersect difficult experiences. The gospel does not remove these. If anything, more trials occur in a life of a believer than a non-believer. However, the gospel provides a framework where one can remain in a state of happiness and internal comfort in spite of great external turmoil. Those who know God can understand the truth and beautiful reality of Jesus’ promise that his teachings make burdens light.

Can you endure the endless trials that are required to refine you into the likeness of God? To do it, you need promises—assurances from God that what you are going through is for your good. Do promises exist for those merely trying to be good?

God provides promises to those who keep his commandments. For example, consider this promise given to a man who gave his all to live in accordance with new truth God showed him.

Those who follow the Lord will always be good, but those who try to be good may not succeed in their objective: “And see that ye have faith, hope, and charity, and then ye will always abound in good works.” (Alma 7:24) Sanctification, or becoming more perfect, will always happen as an individual yields their heart to God.

Peace within and peace without is completely possible. And a relationship with God makes it enduring no matter what may come, whereas an unbeliever may find themselves consistently or occasionally encountering situations that rob them of their peace.

If God is the embodiment of all truth, to obtain truth is to get to know him. The process of religion, like other non-religious pursuits of selfimprovement, is to gain truth by seeking and finding ideas that contradict or expand what you already believe, and attempt to prove them wrong by putting them into action.

For most, the purpose and process of religion are different than I have stated. To most, religion is the permanent and full acceptance of a set of traditions. This type of religion is not concerned with discovering truth because it believes it already has it. This type of religion does not openly seek something better, because it believes it is already perfect. Because this type of religion can never bring about the experiences promised in the scriptures, it always redefines and minimizes those experiences into something less. In far too many cases, religion is used as an excuse to do truly horrible things.

Many religions exist that can provide some benefit, but not anything more than one's own attempts at being good would provide. There are many people who claim to be believers of Jesus, for example, yet they demonstrate none of the capabilities promised to believers in the scriptures. They claim they believe in Jesus, but they really wish on Jesus. There is an important distinction. The difference is that when you limit your beliefs to something less than all the truth God has to offer, you are prevented from actually getting to know the Lord, his will, and his character in full. Accordingly, you also stop short of becoming like the Lord in full. The degree by which you fall short in becoming like him is the degree to which you will fall short of experiencing your greatest potential for happiness.

Most Christians' knowledge of God is sufficiently limited so as to prevent them from being more of a good person than any other nonreligious good person. In fact, most Christians are so limited in their understanding and implementation of God's character that they are put to shame by many who are staunch atheists. It is like most Christians are beat at the races by racers on foot in spite of their possessing Ferraris, because their traditions prevent them from fueling, starting, and driving the car, so they resort to pushing it along the track.

All good and truth comes from God. He said: “...I am the light, and the life, and the truth of the world.” (Ether 4:12)

God is so good that he radiates goodness to everyone, whether they have heard of or believe in him or not. Every breath you take and every ability you have is a gift from God, freely offered, without so much as a need to recognize him.

Humans are not, by default, good people. This is due to our nature, which is selfish and carnal. All good things come from God: “...good cometh of none save it be of me.” (Ether 4:12) God’s good influence is constantly broadcast to all mankind in the form of inspiration to rise above the norm. These ideas can lead to a great deal of change in a person. Many have mastered the ability to listen to this influence, and have affected a great deal of good in this world, and many of them have done so without attributing this influence to God, or even recognizing it as external.

So what do you have to lose by limiting yourself to an anonymous God? Consider an analogy. If your purpose is to gather water, you can do so to a great extent by collecting rain in pots and collecting the dew from flat objects. But if limited to these incidental events, you can never generate water on demand. You are always subject to the weather or time of day and whatever quantity of water that happens to fall. Now imagine that you discovered a spring. At any point of the day you can collect water without any limit on quantity.

God’s truth is all around you, all the time, and you have access to it. Not accidentally, he describes himself and is described as a fountain of truth. “Therefore, with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” (2 Nephi 22:3)

In spite of the limitless nature of truth, those who do not recognize God as the source of it are limited by their perception. Without believing in God, you can’t trust in God. Without trusting in God, there are a great many things you will never notice, recognize, learn, and be that are good, because they will not seem good to you given your present disposition and awareness. When it comes to this set of knowledge that lies beyond what you would otherwise seek and gain, it is the belief in his goodness and a recognition of his being the source of the new thing that makes it desirable to you. You can bypass the limitations of default truth by accessing God— the source of all truth—explicitly.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the physical embodiment of all truth pertaining to our sphere. He said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) Although all the light and truth he contains is constantly accessible, we are limited in our access and even perception of it.

The Lord said that perception of his light is controlled by how well we listen to his words: “I will not show...my strength...save it be unto those who repent of their sins, and hearken unto my words....” (Helaman 7:23)

He said that those who come to him will be shown the things that they currently are unaware of: “...I am the light, and the life, and the truth of the world. Come unto me...and I will show unto you the greater things, the knowledge of which is hid up because of unbelief.” (Ether 4:12-13)

By following the teachings of Jesus, you will gain a relationship with him. This is much more than what most people think of when they consider a relationship with him. I mean an interactive, living, visual, talking, touching relationship with him.

Jesus is the gateway to greater goodness. To enter into the gateway, one must learn of him and come to a willingness to fully submit to his influence. This isn’t easy. You must do what you realize is right in order to become better (good human), even though it's almost always the harder choice, rather than what's easy (selfish, carnal, bad). Obedience to truth increases the access an individual has to truth, from what is generally available to everyone to access, as described with the dew vs. spring analogy.

One who sees no need for greater knowledge will never fully openly seek it. One who doesn't find themselves wrong or flawed (and own this) will have no motive (and dedication) to seek to improve. Encountering Jesus provides us with an awareness of a need for greater knowledge and a startling awareness of our flaws.

As we get to know the Lord, we find more and more of our flaws exposed—flaws we didn’t know existed. As we get to know the Lord, our motivation and dedication to seek to improve increases through the effects of the love he has for us, our knowledge of which increases as we get to know him better.

It is worth noting that submission to God is not the same as submission to an organized religion, set of traditions, or group of people.

The pathway of becoming better through Jesus is a process, not an event. Here, one learns more truth, implements it, and repeats. However, several effects happen immediately.

Happiness is a subjective construct. However, as one obtains more truth, the depth of the experience and its independence from outward circumstances increases. Those who experience an outpouring of the Spirit of God experience a new depth and intensity of joy.

These feelings are a foretaste of the experience those who are reconciled to God experience after this life.

Those who desire to do good generally may find that they still have desires to act in opposition to some aspect of what they know is right. The Spirit of God actually changes your desires: “...the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent...has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” (Mosiah 5:2) This is a uniform experience of those who enter into the pathway offered by Jesus: “...[their] hearts are changed through faith on his name...” (Mosiah 5:7) “...and they did all declare unto the people the selfsame thing—that their hearts had been changed; that they had no more desire to do evil.” (Alma 19:33)

Those who are filled with the Spirit of God are filled with love for all people: “...keep the commandments of God, that they might rejoice and be filled with love towards God and all men.” (Mosiah 2:4)

The Spirit of God enables a person to have the strength to overcome every weakness that besets them. “...the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” (1 Nephi 3:7) “...Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness...” (Moroni 10:32)

Now this is the commandment: Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day. (3 Nephi 27:20)

The Spirit of God strengthens our capacity to withstand the temptation to act against what we know is true.

The Spirit communicates to us the truth we need to understand what is right and wrong in every situation and avoid being fooled.

There has never lived a man so good as Jesus Christ. As you get to know what he did and how he did it in his life, you will find that any other "good" person pales in comparison. The first step is believing that it is possible that God knows much more about being a good person than you do. The key to being shown just how good he is lies in remembering the limitations of your own goodness.

Those who recognize that God possesses all truth will humble themselves before him. They will “...come with full purpose of heart, and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you.” (Jacob 6:5) They have the opportunity to agree to seek after and follow new truth as God reveals it to them in their lives, either directly through revelation or his written word, or indirectly through the experiences they observe.

This agreement occurs in the covenant of baptism, and allows the Lord to pour out his spirit more abundantly upon you, resulting in greater access to positive change in your life.

At this point, you will experience the baptism of fire, which will change your heart and provide you a greater capacity to do good, recognize truth, and be a better person. You will receive increased connection to God through his spirit.

You will find that God will “pour out his Spirit upon [you]...because of [your] easiness and willingness to believe in his words.” (Helaman 6:36) Then, “...by every word which proceeded forth out of the mouth of God, [you will] exercise faith in Christ; and thus by faith...lay hold upon every good thing...” (Moroni 7:25)

Those who pursue this path will not simply become good people. They will become like God himself; that is, they will approach perfection and holiness.

The achievement of this level of character offers a greater deal of happiness than is otherwise available in this world.

Most good people are continuing to become better. They would rightly assume that, left without belief in God, they will continue to improve. What they lose without belief in God is not the ability to become better, but the rate at which they can become better, and how much better they become. There is a saying that the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, and the second best time is today. Likewise, no matter where you stand in your life, considering the existence of God today will accelerate your journey towards greater happiness, strengthen you in challenging times to come, and help you acquire more light and truth than you had ever considered existed.

Part Two: Searching for Truth

Chapter 9: Understanding the Search for Truth

There are two paths that can be walked in this life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

God has appointed that truth should only be imparted according to one’s heed and diligence.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chapter 10: Revelation

Revelation is the transmission of information from God to you. Revelation is a more accurate finite estimate of infinite reality. Note that this definition means that revelation is inherently circumstantial. It is true up to your level of awareness, but may not be true beyond your awareness. Also note that revelation is indistinguishable from learning. While all truth comes from God, this does not mean that all truth will be religiously oriented or found in explicitly religious channels. In other words, truth is truth no matter where it is found or how it is wrapped.

Because truth is infinite, while you can have no revelation on a subject, you can never get all revelation on a subject. Everything you think you know is either incorrect or incomplete. Even the most amazing revelations are only partial packets of truth.

Revelation can come as impressions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, words, sentences, understanding, visions, voices, and visitations, all of which are expansions of awareness or increased comprehension of good and evil.

Revelation from God is not external to your understanding. It is not something that comes from outside of you. It comes from within in response to what is outside of you. The light within you is the source of the revelation you receive.

The light of Christ is within you, to the degree of your awareness. It will show you all things that you should do (see 2 Nephi 32:2 and Moroni 10:5). Identifying situations where your current awareness does not provide sufficient information to know God’s mind on an issue provides you with opportunities to “search in the light of Christ” (see Moroni 7:19).

What is the light of Christ? It is your conscience; it is the quantity of light God has given you. When you obey God and seek for more light, he will increase this light within you, until you eventually obtain the awareness that God has (“the perfect day”, see Proverbs 4:18 and D&C 50:24).

Your conscience is an incredibly valuable resource. It is what you feel is right, not how you feel about what is right. It is the answer to “what is right”, not “what makes me feel good.” This is sometimes referred to as the burning of the bosom.

The idea of revelation as coming from an internal source has important implications, one of which is how your level of awareness determines how and what you receive via revelation.

The Holy Ghost reveals the truth of all things according to your present level of understanding. God will speak to you in your own language.

Your “language” doesn’t refer to English, Spanish, etc. It means that he will speak to you in terms of your present awareness. Your present awareness constrains the tools he can use and the breadth and depth of ideas he can explain to you. The Lord explained how he reveals further light and truth to us.

New revelation always comes just beyond your present level of awareness. The lower your awareness, the more basic the revelation you are capable of receiving.

It is good to have awareness if you reconcile how you use it to God’s will. Not only is it incorrect to see knowledge as bad, it is impossible to grow in God’s light until and unless you acquire more knowledge. Yet, the possession of knowledge does not dictate how you use it.

Note that in order to apply the light of Christ, you have to study it out in your mind and ask if it is right. Too many oversimplify this process into literally and simply asking “is this right?” The Lord himself has clearly stated that this is not the way to obtain revelation: “Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.” (D&C 9:7)

If getting revelation were as easy as just asking yes-or-no questions, why would God have said so much regarding learning to discern good from evil? Why would so many scriptural passages be dedicated to the evaluation process, if it were as simple as asking yes-or-no questions?

The vast majority of God’s awareness can’t be communicated through simple yes-or-no questions. If you limit yourself to this narrow channel, you will also cut yourself off from most of what God wants you to know. Furthermore, yes-or-no answers via feelings are the easiest to be mistaken on.

Searching in the light of Christ takes work. If we mistakenly assume it is as simple as asking yes-or-no questions, we will end up either with a very small set of truth, or a cloud of manufactured answers.

Even if we expand our understanding of the domain of revelation to include questions with more complicated answers, we still dramatically restrict our capacity for obtaining further light and truth. Revelation is increased awareness and increased light. It does not necessarily consist of an answer to a question, but of the information you need to “search in the light of Christ”—or to decide what is good and what is evil—beyond what you previously understood.

While it is a mistake to think that it is wise or acceptable to make educated guesses absent sufficient revelation to know God’s will, it is the case that there will be many situations where we can’t sincerely and confidently say that we know which outcome or course of action or idea is right. Rather than throw up our hands in revelatory nihilism, we should instead see every situation where we lack sufficient light as an opportunity to seek more.

Sincere reconciliation to your best knowledge is not the same as an educated guess. If you believe, without doubt, that you know what God would do in this situation (which is not the same as actually knowing what God would do), that is good and what you should do. If you aren’t sure what he would do, you have not yet sufficiently sought his will. You have to search for more revelation to know.

The Lord said: “Without faith you can do nothing.” (D&C 8:10) Asking in faith certainly requires looking into every resource you have at your disposal. This includes everything in the scriptures, as well as all good books and people you have access to. If you have not bothered looking into resources that you have the means to investigate, how can you expect God to show you what to do?

Revelation comes through the mind and through the heart: “Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart.” (D&C 8:2) “Through the mind” refers to our thoughts. Our thoughts work in conjunction with our efforts to investigate: to study, to think, to reason, to test. All reason tends toward what is right, but is only as good as our honesty. We will selectively include or exclude observations and twist interpretations to the degree that we are willing to lie. “Through the heart” refers to our feelings and desires. These interplay because our feelings are useful only inasmuch as our desire is toward good continually. Inasmuch as we lack trust in God and/or desire what is not according to our best understanding of right and wrong, our feelings will lead toward evil.

Some things are revealed without our seeking them. These types of revelation are rare. Most revelation comes commensurate with the amount of consideration we invest. The Lord said that he will expand our awareness if we ask him to: “Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” (Jeremiah 33:3)

Many times the Lord has invited and instructed us to ask, seek, and knock. What does this mean? It means to consider there is more to be aware of than you presently know, and to seek God for it. It means to ask him questions with the intent to have your awareness expanded, knowing that many times this will include the replacement of things you currently regard as true with something better.

We get revelation most often according to the topics we desire. Our desire is like a flashlight pointing a specific direction in the dark. It both actuates our learning and constrains it.

It seems that we all constrain the topics and content of what God can reveal to us. There are things we would rather not know. Don’t fear God. He has never given you a reason to, and he never will. He alone is worthy of your perfect trust. God will never reveal something to you that you are incapable of obeying, and he will never reveal something to you that isn’t precisely calculated to yield the greatest joy you are prepared to receive.

By having a radically open mind, you will not constrain what he can tell you. Having an open mind does not mean ignoring everything you have learned to this point. It means being willing to question those things and replace them when sufficient reasoning is provided. Being open-minded opens the flood gates, admitting the consideration of all things, both true and false. Constricting that aperture will successfully reduce the quantity of falsehood you consider, but will do so at the expense of truth you’ll never get to.

The solution to false positives is not dogmatism (a constricted aperture), but discernment. Discernment is the ability to evaluate truth. The evaluation of truth is discussed in another chapter.

There are two challenges in discerning revelation: discerning the source and discerning the meaning. Revelation is not uniformly easy to perceive, understand, or test. It is vital to accept and correctly interpret real revelation while discarding all other putative messages. Learning these techniques is like developing a spring you find in the woods. Everyone is blessed with the light of Christ, or a water source. It is up to you to develop it. With a spring, you do this by digging out the mud, lining the hole with rocks, and building a reservoir to store the water. There are similar tactics to develop your channels for revelation.

It is vitally important to discern the source of a putative revelation. It is not enough to simply weigh the type of message (dream, vision, visitation, impression, etc.). Counterfeits exist at all levels of revelation. There is opposition in all things (see 2 Nephi 2:11), and revelation is not excluded. Opposition in revelation comes from counterfeit revelation. Revelation comes from God. Counterfeit revelation comes from Satan or from our imagination. The devil can appear as an angel of light, revealing wonderful new truth to you (mingled with error) in more glory than you’ve ever seen and tell you he is God. If he can do this, certainly you can be mistaken about faint impressions and everything in between.

Each source has a channel into your decision-making center. Each channel expands or contracts based on how much you seek it and how much you listen to what comes through it. Your body will tell you to do things that feel good. It has no altruism, and it is unconcerned with others except as tools to influence how you feel. The channel to Satan will tell you to do and feel things that draw you and/or others away from God and God’s purposes, whether you recognize it as such or not. God will do the opposite. While the body’s desires occur at a more or less constant rate, both God and Satan will send information intermittently. A person with a wide channel to God may go from minding their own business in one moment to having a sudden revelation about another person in the next. A person with a wide channel to Satan may go from completely rational in one moment to completely emotionally unhinged in the next. Each rational source (God and Satan) will use their resources strategically in the most likely way to bring about their desired outcome: Satan wants to maximize misery, and God wants to maximize joy.

How do you discern the source of a putative revelation? The Lord prescribed the following.

What is just, what is humble, what is righteous, what is good—all of these things vary according to the understanding of the individual. The Lord says to trust in your honest current understanding of these concepts, according to your mind. In plain language, the Lord said that to obey your conscience is to obey him.

What about things that lie outside of your moral understanding? For example, what if you get an impression of a future event? Another way to learn his voice is to learn what revelation from God is like to you. Describing this to another person is like explaining color to a blind person, or explaining to a man what it is like to be a woman. Some things you have to experience for yourself. Here is the process: Pay attention to what you think is his voice, then see what happens. The Holy Ghost is a revelator. It will reveal the future among anything it says. Soldiers use tracer rounds in a machine gun to guide their fire to the target. By paying attention to the trajectory of the tracer rounds, the shooter can tell where the non-tracer bullets are landing, even without seeing them. The impressions you get about the future during revelations will give you checkpoints you can use later to evaluate the source of truth. If the prophecies come to pass, use that as an indication that you are developing your discernment. If they don’t, mark that experience down as false.

Evaluating putative truth requires active thought and a developed intellect. Revelations ought to make sense. The Lord said: “Come now, and let us reason together.” (Isaiah 1:18; see also D&C 50:10-11). While it isn’t always possible to ask someone who is trying to share new truth with you to banter with you long enough for you to be persuaded, this is a reasonable and requisite practice with God, and can prove invaluable in our evaluation of putative revelation. Back and forth conversations with the Lord about a revelation he has provided are common enough in the scriptures. Don’t hesitate to provide him with the observations you have that don’t seem to square with your putative revelation. If he resolves them all, you can move forward in reconciliation to the light you have. If “he” doesn’t or can’t, your “he” might not be who you think it is.

The devil’s revelations, which are based at least in part of falsehood, always reach a breaking point when exposed to reason. For example, when the devil lied to Eve in the garden of Eden, he didn’t and couldn’t counter the argument that God had given to not eat the forbidden fruit. He sidestepped her complaint, and she didn’t bother bringing it up again.

Note how Eve did not honestly evaluate this situation. Instead of catching the devil’s lack of addressing her valid contention to his invitation, she ignored it because she saw something she desired independent of her understanding of what was right. Missing from the list of pros in verse 6 is any addressing of the issue of God’s having told them not to eat it.

You can misunderstand a revelation, even if it is from God. Many times, we will overlay what we wish he is telling us onto what he is actually telling us. Be careful of what your desires are, as discussed above.

Revelation can come through low information or high information events. Understanding the information value of a message is important in discerning its source and content. Information is a function of content (low to high) and intensity (low to high). Content means how much there is to the revelation, and intensity means how strong it is. For example, a waking vision is high content and high intensity. The voice of God with a short message is low content and high intensity.

The lower the information, the easier it is to be mistaken about the source or content of a revelation. High information revelation is much more readily tested than low information revelation. If I say that sometime in the future it will rain, I will be 100% correct, but this does not mean that this was anything but a guess. If God tells you that on a certain day, the sun will stand still in the sky, it will be very clear whether or not this is true.

The higher the intensity, the lower the odds of misinterpreting the revelation. The higher the content, the lower the odds of misjudging the source.

The importance of the message is not determinable by the information content or intensity level of it. Your whole life could swing on a little hinge of a faint impression. Consider that Lehi was warned of the impending destruction of Jerusalem in a dream. Would you have packed up your family, left all your belongings, and moved into the desert based on a dream only? Yet, had he not, he and his family would have been killed. Joseph’s dream saved the entire nation of Egypt, and many others beside. Most of Daniel’s powerful revelations came through dreams. God gives incredibly important instructions through impressions, voices, and dreams. Denying them may very well be the difference between blessing and cursing, life and death.

You can know something is right and still feel awful about doing it. Feelings are usually insufficient to indicate revelation because they are a very low information channel. You can feel good about bad things, and bad about good things. In fact, you are likely to feel bad about good things because good things will tend to push you beyond your comfort zone and challenge what you presently believe. When the scriptures refer to feelings, they are not referring to feelings in general, but the specific feeling you get when you reflect an idea off the light that is within you. Jesus did not feel excited when he prayed for the Father to take the bitter cup away from him, but he knew what he was being asked to do was the right thing. The importance of this point can’t be stressed enough! What you are after isn’t how you feel about it, but what the light in you says about it. Contradicting your traditions or public sentiment will always feel bad, but God’s will lies in the strait and narrow path.

Chapter 11: Acquisition of Truth Requires Change

The task of discerning truth is difficult. Because the gospel is progressive, our search for truth is unending. We cannot simply have a static list of all of God’s commandments. Instead, we will live our entire lives in an unending process of letting go of previously held beliefs as we acquire more accurate ones.

Seeking truth will sometimes lead to disproving previously held notions, but letting go of false beliefs draws one closer to God. Therefore, whether resulting in affirmation or disproof, honest questioning can only lead closer to God. We can only improve by adopting higher order truth than we presently hold.

You shouldn't fear putative truth. If it turns out false, you can be that much surer of your current views. If it turns out true, you have advanced in your knowledge and will reap the advanced benefits.

There ought not be any fear of losing what you already have—a rational mind will only replace a previous position with a more solid position. An open mind and a desire to know truth will only ever lead a person closer to God.

Fear of finding new truth is simply not well-founded. As a camera focuses, the image becomes clearer. Although the view certainly changes, the progress is always a refinement. A focused camera picture represents only information gain, not loss. Perhaps this is why Jacob said: “I know that the words of truth are hard against all uncleanness; but the righteous fear them not, for they love the truth and are not shaken.” (2 Nephi 9:40) Jacob was no stranger to uncomfortable new truth. His life was a constant barrage of paradigm shifts. These showed him that he could always confide in God, even if it meant abandoning things he previously thought were true, or blazing paths unfamiliar to his culture and heritage.

Truth can’t be harmed by further investigation; only falsehood. The degree to which we fear hearing arguments that oppose our view is the degree to which we are not genuinely seeking the truth.

Any time we set bounds on what could be true, we limit the amount of truth we can acquire. Instead of describing our beliefs in terms of defined creeds, we ought to recognize that we expect our beliefs to change over time, and instead describe our belief as whatever is good and true.

Any religion or ideology, being lower and less than God himself, necessarily includes things that are incorrect or incomplete. Progress towards God is marked by invitations to do things you had either never before considered or things you previously thought were wrong.

God will consistently challenge your paradigms. Orthodoxy is the antithesis of seeking truth from God. The latter requires a constant search for new facts, new observations, and new theories. Ironically, orthodoxy is used as the measuring stick for apostasy, when the idea of a closed canon is itself apostate from the idea of truth.

Nephi warned that in our day many would not be interested in more truth.

We are told that those who adopt this position will not be given any additional truth, and thus will never reach the point where they can come back into God’s presence.

Just because you know something doesn’t mean you know everything. All the righteous ancients knew more than we do, and yet they were constantly seeking for more than they had. When we think of the over-wise, we tend to think of those who flaunt knowledge and are constantly challenging what they are told. In reality, the over-wise are those who are satisfied with ignorance.

These are they who are too “wise” to be taught.

Pride is not knowing too much. It is knowing too little. The learned are not they who know too much, but they who believe they know more than they actually do.

No man setting his hand to the plow can turn back. Let the dead bury their dead. We must be willing to leave our dead ideas alone and move onto what is higher and better.

Glory comes proportional to the degree of the law lived. Those who limit themselves to the law they currently understand cannot advance to higher states of glory.

While spiritual stagnation is comfortable, it is also damning. It is easy and comfortable to live your religion when you assume that it will always be the same: your spiritual practices will never change, nor will the requirements of salvation. However, every saved person in the scriptures— every person with whom God made a covenant—was constantly subjected to principles that were beyond their previous comprehension despite their righteous lives. Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac, Moses was astounded by things he had never before supposed, etc. This is because we are not like God. We possess the degree of glory associated with the degree of the law we live. If we live a Celestial law, we possess Celestial glory, Terrestrial law, Terrestrial glory, and so on (see D&C 88:20-35). In order to ascend to a higher degree of glory, we will always need to embrace a set of laws of which we are ignorant. If you live your current beliefs perfectly, and have not been brought back into God’s presence, your current beliefs do not possess the power to bring you back into God’s presence. Like it or not, this means you necessarily do not possess the same beliefs as Jesus and all people who, by learning from him, obtained salvation. Therefore, coming up to a Celestial glory will require letting go of at least some of the things you currently hold as true. You cannot close yourself to ideas you perceive as contradictory to current beliefs and simultaneously let in further light and truth.

Not even Jesus himself possessed all there was to know in the beginning.

Those who believe that they already know all the doctrines necessary to be saved presume they know more than Jesus did, as he had to progress from one teaching to the next. They presume that, while Enoch and his city required hundreds of years to become Zion, they can do it with what little they learn at church! Enoch learned new fundamental truths about God’s character after having been in heaven with God for generations. As the Lord said.

Frankly, no one knows everything there is to know. If Jesus, Enoch, and others still had a lot to learn, we should be very cautious in our assertions of what we “know” to be true. Otherwise, we fall into the category of those who think they are wise, which incidentally means precisely that we do not hearken to God.

Never think that what you have is enough, or the end, or final. “Wo be unto him that shall say: We have received the word of God, and we need no more of the word of God, for we have enough!” (2 Nephi 28:29) There is no such thing as final truth. Alma taught.

No matter how sure you are about anything, no matter the criticality of your understanding of a certain doctrine to your entire belief structure, always consider the possibility that you are wrong. The only way to know, of course, is to ask the Lord.

Joshua and the Elders of Israel failed to do so when approached by emissaries from one of the nations the Lord had commanded to be destroyed. Falling for the disguise and false story, the Israelites made an oath with the emissaries, who claimed to be from a far distant land, to allow them to be their servants. Unfortunately, “the men...asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord.” (Joshua 9:14) The Israelites foolishly made an oath to protect the men and their nation, and thus could not comply with the Lord’s command to destroy them. At least some of the idolatry and eventual apostasy of Israel can be traced to this one incident of overconfidence in the understanding of men.

Damnation is literally to advance no further. Those who refuse new truths from God (they cannot come from any other source—though they may come through many sources, including people we presume to be fools) will be permanently limited in their eternal progression, because higher law is required for higher blessings. “All kingdoms have a law given; And there are many kingdoms...And unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions. All beings who abide not in those conditions are not justified.” (D&C 88:36, 38-39) When God offers a blessing or knowledge to someone, and they refuse it, they are damned—it will permanently block them from obtaining what otherwise could have been theirs.

It may seem difficult to imagine that thinking you know something and failing to hearken to God are the same. Yet, Jacob equates it to being deaf (see 2 Nephi 9:31) and blind (see 2 Nephi 9:32), probably because God continues to reveal new things to everyone as long as they continue to listen to him. Therefore, if you become set in your idea of the truth, you could only have become so by ignoring what God is continuing to say to you. Living revelation means constant revelation. We should expect to frequently displace our current understanding with something better.

If one assumes that they lack knowledge, the next step is to seek it. If we want to learn more than we know, we will have to investigate points of view that don’t belong to us already. While it is possible that new knowledge exists outside the bounds of accepted truth, scriptural examples suggest it is much more likely that further light and truth will clash with what we already think we know than support it. However, this gives us no reason to fear reading or hearing information that doesn’t agree with what we believe. After all, if we believe man is fallen and God is perfect, we ought to understand that his revelation of our misconceptions is how we become more like him.

You should not assume something is false simply because you have never heard it before. Anyone who does not believe they know everything ought to expect to hear something that they’ve never heard before, or something that contradicts what they have been told previously.

Searching for truth requires a willingness to investigate both sides of a position as objectively as possible. If you are merely arguing for your position, you cannot honestly say you are searching for truth. You do not know all things, and therefore you cannot ever be totally sure that you are right. If you aren't willing to be wrong about something, you can only go so far in your search for truth.

Knowledge of opposing views is absolutely necessary for two reasons. First, a rational position requires knowledge of both sides of an issue. For example, how could you honestly say that one variety of apple is the tastiest if you’ve never tried another variety? Second, you cannot effectively persuade others if you are not aware of why they believe what they do.

Knowing your counterpart’s reasons for their belief is a two-fold benefit. First, construction of a persuasive argument on your part requires you to address their reasons for believing. How could you persuade a fan of Golden Delicious apple that Granny Smith is superior if you have never actually tried Golden Delicious? The strength of your position depends on your addressing their reasons for believing. Secondly, an intrinsic benefit of investigating your opponent’s position is the possible discovery that they are, in fact, correct. Just as you could possess evidences of your position that your counterpart had never considered, so could they. You could very well end up supporting their position should their evidence prove stronger than yours. Yet, such a situation is to be desired, not feared, for those in possession of greater truth have drawn closer to God.

For most, unbiased evaluation of opposing views is particularly difficult. After all, no one wants to turn away from their life's work, or the legacy of their ancestors. The more that is sacrificed for a belief system, the less likely one is to abandon that belief system. The loss isn't all ideological, either.

Accepting putative truth might cost you your job, your loved ones, or anything else your heart might be attached to. In order to maintain objectivity, one must adopt a posture where they can temporarily detach from their persona and consider putative truth absent of what it would cost them if it were true, what they think of the source, etc. The search for truth must be detached from our temporal and philosophical circumstance.

People often refuse new truth because they can’t figure out how to believe it without letting go of something they already believe. The Lord said.

The Lord was referring to how the Pharisees struggled to accept his teachings during his mortal ministry. The Pharisees and company not only had preconceived notions about the truth, they prided themselves on being ideological leaders of the people. Then Jesus came and told them they were blind leaders of the blind. Trying to teach them anew with old scriptures just didn’t work, because the people just couldn’t accept the possibility that they had it all wrong.

When higher truth is revealed, and we are confident that it comes from God, we must refit previously accepted truths into the new perspective given us by the Lord. If things do not fit, they ought to be removed. The old order is not amenable to new truth. You have to start fresh.

An example of letting go of lower truth in order to accept higher truth is given in Nephi, who firmly believed that killing someone was contrary to God’s law. He was told by God to kill. He was taught what principles define the finer edge between sin and righteous action when it comes to killing. He was introduced to a higher law which required him to let go of the lower law. Failing to accept that light and truth when it came would have led to many short-term negative consequences and the long-term negative consequence of his eternal damnation (or limitation) except and until he was willing to accept the higher law.

If you arrive at a new truth that does not fit in your present understanding of things, you should just keep trying to ask questions and seek new knowledge until everything is reconciled. When God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, he did not refuse. Eventually, he was taught exactly why this was necessary.

Lack of truth is not a result of it not being available—it is all around you, all the time. Every artificial boundary we place on putative truth limits the quantity of truth we receive. It seems each of us has a line in the sand where we say “God would never ask me to _.” We should recognize these arbitrary bounds for what they are. Instead of lauding our assumed superiority in moral judgment (which should be blatantly obvious due to our lack of spiritual fruit), we ought to recognize our sacred cows as evidence of a lack of trust in God. Trust in God’s character gives us prior belief of whatever he is going to teach us, no matter how outlandish it seems.

Perfect love removes all fear. If you truly love God, then seek to know him on his terms, holding nothing back. Only those who put everything they think they know about God on the altar can come to know him.

We can extend our capacity to accept new light and truth through penitent prayer and humility towards God. When we truly believe we know nothing, we are much more willing to accept new truth. When we are totally willing to let go of anything we think we know, we are much more willing to accept new truth.

When we refuse to dismiss anything out of hand (as John instructs us— “try the spirits” or test new truth to see its fruits), we are much more willing to accept new truth. When we refuse to dictate to God what is right and what is wrong, we are much more willing to accept new truth. When we realize that what was right before and what God might have inspired us to accept before could be superseded by something higher, we are much more willing to accept new truth. It is possible to come to the point where no truth pertaining to the Celestial, Terrestrial, or Telestial kingdom has power to derail you, despite the fact that you do not yet know them. This is when your calling and election is made sure, or rather this is what it means and what it takes.

Too often in life, we subscribe to the idea that we can, at some point, be “done.” We rest on the laurels of previous truth acquisition. When something becomes known and ordered, it is not a sign that it is done. Functionality does not imply completeness. Something good does not imply the nonexistence of something better. Truth does not confine you to a box; it gives you the confidence to explore everything you don't yet know, and test against what you think you do know. Much of the pain of hell comes from the surprise that everything you assumed was final is in actuality anything but.

Anyone willing to set up limits on the domain of truth will succeed only in limiting their own acquisition of it.

Your efficacy as a truth seeker will be proportional to how much you believe that everything you know is incorrect or incomplete.

Most adults get excited at the idea of going to a party, a baseball game, or some other social event. How excited do you get when you are corrected?

Most people would do anything to prevent getting corrected. Most actually do. That is no surprise.

We delight in learning the truths that align with how we choose to act, but are slow to recognize and do not seek the truths which would require us to change.

It feels good to experience life according to our preconceived notions. It feels bad to experience contradictions to our preconceived notions. It feels good to think you are wise. It feels bad to be shown that you are a fool.

By definition, an opportunity for further light and knowledge is also a realization of personal inadequacy. This is because improvement always involves changing something already in practice. Seeking light and truth is, by definition, uncomfortable. It is only borne by those who have come to hunger and thirst after the results of the search: righteousness. Unfortunately, it is the tendency of the natural man to hide in fear rather than expose himself in faith to the Lord, ready for instruction on how to improve.

Adam ran and hid when God came to correct him, and mankind has been running and hiding from reality ever since. The difference between a truth seeker and a truth avoider is not in the opportunity for improvement, but in the reaction to the invitation to improve.

Most people require a positive ratio of compliments to correction, whether the source is another person or God. How willing are you to be wrong? What is your ratio of compliments to correction? Why does it matter? If a person gains more knowledge in this life, it is because he exercises more diligence and obedience than another (see D&C 130:19). When it comes to how much light and truth you acquire in this life, your correction ratio will make all the difference. This is why the Psalmist said: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law.” (Psalm 94:12)

We ought to love correction.

Correction is always a good thing. “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.” (Job 5:17) Every time anyone accepts correction, they are better off than they were before. These are opportunities to discover how to have a more accurate view of reality. Whatever is more accurate is better, without exception, even though it might hurt a little initially: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” (Hebrews 12:11)

Illusions can bring pleasure or comfort, but always with interest. The bill always comes due, and when it does, it will always cost far more than acting according to a more accurate estimate of reality would have. Closing your eyes on a tightrope might ease your fear, but it won't make you safer, and might be the last decision you make.

We ought to beg and plead with God to correct us, and be diligent in seeking every interaction with others as a potential correction. “Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish.” (Proverbs 12:10) We ought to feast on the scriptures and other materials that could expose our weaknesses.

Humility is a word thrown around a lot. What is real humility? It is how much correction you can take before you quit!

In order to consider yourself a fool before God, and yet relentlessly seek and obtain further light and truth from him, you must adopt the difficult position of at once being perceptive and faithful enough to act on everything you have been taught thus far while also being ready at a moment’s notice to cast it aside in favor of greater light and truth. You must be like a cat and like a bird at the same time. When you try to remove a cat from its location, it will dig in its claws and bite you. If you try to remove a bird, it will fly away at the first intimation of movement towards it.

Adopting principles of higher light and truth requires the greatest tenacity. You will have to tenaciously seek for it, and tenaciously reconcile your perceptions, actions, thoughts, and desires to what you learn. Then you will also have to tenaciously cling to the light God has given you in the face of persecution from those with less light. At the same time, adopting light and truth requires great humility, because you never know the source or content of the next dispensation of light and truth. While charging forth in tenacity, you have to be absolutely humble to any potential additional light and truth. When presented with putative truth, you have to instantly consider whether it might be true, putting your most bedrock assumptions and beliefs up to reinspection if need be.

A proper response to an invitation from another to consider a different point of view should always be met with patient, unbiased consideration. Some respond to an invitation to consider a new point of view with anger.

Should you find yourself getting angry at such an invitation, it should serve as a signal that you have cut yourself off from the learning process, and have become one who thinks they are wise (see 2 Nephi 9:29, 42). Anger is never a result of rational consideration of evidence. It causes God to withdraw the opportunity to learn more.

When putative truth is responded to with anger, it is not the putative truth that is on trial. Instead, this reaction reveals the desires and intent of the hearer.

Why would putative truth ever make you angry, when everything in the gospel is designed to improve you by leading you from something worse to something better? When a good person hears putative truth, they consider it. If something they believe is wrong or incomplete, they want to know! If they reject a putative truth, they do so only after hearing it out, and do so with calm reason, not emotional rage.

Chapter 12: Evaluating Putative Truth

God has given each of us a spirit capable of discerning truth from error, but evaluating candidate truth is neither easy nor fast. Mormon said, “Search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil.” (Moroni 7:19) Truth seeking is not a passive activity.

Paul wrote: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) It is difficult to give a fair shake to “all things,” as this would require all of your time and a great deal of your money. There are far more claims to truth than actual truth, like mining flecks of gold from a mountain of dross. Extracting higher order truth requires testing. If you want to maximize your intake of new truth, you have to become efficient at the process of testing it.

The ability to investigate the value of putative truth is perhaps the most critical skill you can possess, as it will determine how much truth you can obtain given your limited time and exposure.

Modern first-world people seem to test things by asking, “Does this new principle conform to my preconceived notions?” If yes, they accept. If no, they reject. If this is your disposition, you can never progress beyond where you are, because you will reject all truth that is higher than what you already possess.

New truth, by definition, must be different than old truth. There is no such thing as new truth that is the same as what you now believe. If it was, you would already believe it. This clearly does not mean that everything that is different than what you currently believe is true, but it does mean that all truth higher than what you now believe will be different than what you now believe. Though only some new truth will directly contradict what you currently believe, all will be either outside of what you currently believe or contradictory to it.

The Lord taught.

Many times, old paradigms can’t support new and improved ideas. A new idea may not be as valuable in context of old ideas as it is in the context of an unrealized future. The invention of the automobile came at a time when people would have rather had a faster horse.

It might seem tempting to use the world as the standard of truth, but further consideration precludes this option. The Lord said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, darkness covereth the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people, and all flesh has become corrupt before my face.” (D&C 112:23)

We ought not reject a putative belief simply because another person or group doesn’t believe it. Similarly, it is unwise to accept a putative belief simply because someone else (a friend, a family member, a celebrity, or church leader) maintains that belief. Peer pressure is not compelling enough to maintain your own adherence during trials. Nor does something become true merely because it is repeated often. Those who are off the strait and narrow path far outnumber those who are on it. Truth always stands in the minority, and therefore will always be the exception to what is heard most often.

Most young people adopt the beliefs of their parents. We should not believe something just because we were told it by our parents. The Lord’s beliefs quickly evolved beyond what his parents believed, and he taught others to likewise be willing to leave behind what their parents believe for something better. When he encountered a woman who professed that her parents had taught her the blasphemous practice of worshipping in her home town, he taught her that true worship was different than both her traditions and the traditions of the Jews at that time (see John 4:20).

Paul taught that not all childish beliefs are appropriate to continue as an adult. He said, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) Paul was raised to be a strict Pharisee. Gladly, he was open to an alternative truth.

There are many other profound examples of people whose righteousness exceeded that of their parents only after they were willing to believe something better might be available.

We must address our crippling incorrect judgment of putative truth: In evaluating putative truth, we use our preconceived notions of good and evil (from a lower level of truth) to judge higher levels of truth. What we value as right and good can be but dross to those with a higher understanding, and what we condemn as evil is often right to those with higher understanding (for example, Paul’s Pharisaical traditions were good enough to lead him to Christ, but had to be put aside to embrace the greater light offered to him once there). At the same time, we dismiss higher truth as “wrong,” and in so doing damn ourselves to our current level of understanding (as the Pharisees did in rejecting Jesus’ teaching that divorce should not be a ready option in marriage).

Jesus taught, “Judge not according to your traditions, but judge righteous judgment.” (John 7:24, JST) It is not the false traditions of our fallen flesh that will teach us the truth of all things, but the Holy Ghost (see Moroni 10:5).

New truth cannot be evaluated through the lens of the current beliefs of an individual. Candidate truth can only be evaluated through the light an individual has from God.

The naïve belief of most is that we will find higher truth attractive and desirable the second we perceive it, and that we will notice it as soon as we are exposed to it. This is a destructive myth.

Higher truth is both hidden and repulsive. Were it not so, you would already possess it. In order to see what is above you as right, you have to learn what is above you, which you currently either do not see at all, or incorrectly see as wrong. If it were any other way, you would already be at that higher level of truth instead of your present lower one.

What pleases our carnal sensibilities is almost assuredly not what improves. After all, the natural man is an enemy to God. Paul said that to use what feels good as a proxy for what is good leads to degradation.

In reality, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 16:25) What we see as desirable simply mirrors what we desire, and our desires are not set on truth. “All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits.” (Proverbs 16:2) Knowing this, the Lord invited us to overcome our poor judgment by changing our criteria. He said: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” (John 7:24)

Instead, we must use the light within us to discern between good and evil: “And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.” (Moroni 10:5)

Remember that whatever is of this world is fleeting. No matter how good it seems, we have to judge in a much broader context, an eternal context, to see that it is not what it seems, not as enduring as it seems, and not as pleasurable as it seems.

Because almost every prophet in the scriptures came from outside the recognized hierarchy, applying this standard would require us to throw away almost all of scripture. Clearly, this is an invalid test.

Even Jesus’ authority did not come from the church authorities of his day. Nor did it come from the fact that he was the Son of God. Jesus’ authority came through the provenance of his message. He spoke the words of the Father. Those who judged the truthfulness of his message based on earthly authority incorrectly rejected him.

We ought to assume that those who use the same false standards today will also reject light and truth.

Light is a signal. When you boost a signal, you boost both signal and noise, which are respectively like wheat (what is beneficial) and tares (what is not). Some people never boost their signal at all. They will die with the same paucity of truth they obtained at some early point in their lives. They will most likely have all the noise intact, because it is impossible to ferret out the noise without acquiring new truth in the process.

Some people are good at opening their aperture for truth. They are very open-minded, and consider a broader and deeper range of ideas than most people. Because they take in more truth, they will likewise end up with more noise to filter. The open-minded intentionally suspend judgment until any new information has been considered, but they need not skip judgment.

The odds of a person being open-minded and the probability of that same person having increased discernment seem to be independent. Open-minded people seem to be just as likely to have an aptitude for discernment as closed-minded people. Because of the combination of likelihood of low discernment and an increase in ideas considered, open-minded people tend to be easily derailed in their pursuit of truth by ideas that are absolute nonsense. They tend to be non-conformist and unconventional, but not in necessarily advantageous ways. Without developing discernment—the ability to filter—the open-minded will be disadvantaged compared to the close-minded.

There is a difference between being open-minded and being undiscerning. The scriptures state that “The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going.” (Proverbs 14:15) Surely, it is wise to be prudent. One must consider “his going,” or question their current understanding of life, salvation, the commandments, their principles, and how they are applying them.

The undiscerning do not differentiate between options—they have no standards and do not sort. Pigs are undiscerning. They will eat anything given to them. When a messenger starts preaching a contrarian message, the majority of people who are attracted to such a message are the undiscerning, because the odds of being both open-minded and discerning are lower than the odds of being open-minded and undiscerning. After a culling period (typically when they are asked to sacrifice something) their numbers thin out. Do not cast your pearls before swine.

Those who acquire the most light are not like pigs, but like whales. Whales spend their days sucking in massive quantities of chaotic waters, filtering out the tiny organisms that provide it with food. They spit out everything else.

Differentiation of the good from the bad requires raw experience. The more you venture into the unknown, the more good you can mine. When we learn what is good and what is bad in this new experience, we transform the unknown into the known. As we discard the bad, we retain elements of the unknown that are good, forging incremental improvement in our character.

Wheat and tares look the same until it is time for harvest (see Matthew 13:24-30). You can’t weed out the tares until it is time for harvest, because only in the appearance of their fruit do they look different. Because truth is progressive, you have to continually retest the truths that you have already acquired. It is unavoidable that your wheat will contain tares, and when your knowledge on a topic is young, it is by design that it be so. As you grow in that topic, the time when it is appropriate to have tares among your wheat comes to an end. As you grow in light, you will find that some of what you previously held to be true requires further distinction. There will be some tares scattered throughout your wheat, and in some cases, some or even all of what you thought was a patch of wheat will be tares. Weeding your field is a process that never ends. You will always have to reevaluate your beliefs—incorporating new observations, asking new questions, and learning new things.

As you acquire more truth, you will need to reinterpret what you previously learned based on your advanced awareness and your advancing understanding of good and evil. In the scriptures, this process is sometimes referred to as “searching in the light of Christ.” The parable of the wheat and tares provides a sense of security in our search for truth, without which it may seem too unsure to venture into. In searching for truth, there is no risk of losing anything of value—all wheat must be preserved in any filtering routine. Any observations or experiences of value within a later-proved belief must be addressed in a replacement belief. You shouldn't fear putative truth. If it turns out false, you can be that much surer of your current views. If it turns out true, you have advanced in your knowledge and will reap the advanced benefits.

Paul said that the things of the Spirit can only be known by the Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:14). The light within you consists of your conscience— your sincere understanding of good and evil. This is the mechanism God will use to tell you whether something is good or evil. As you will realize if you’ve read the preceding chapters, this is not a static resource. God’s light will grow and change as you reconcile to what it tells you. As you will also realize if you’ve read the preceding chapters, this is not a passive process.

You have to have a conversation with the light, where you hash out all the details to the level merited by the weight of the issue at hand. You have to weigh out what is edifying and what is not: “And that which doth not edify is not of God, and is darkness.” (D&C 50:23) “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.” (1 Corinthians 10:23) You have to actively consider what empowers you, and what exercises power over you: “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” (1 Corinthians 6:12)

By querying God and searching your conscience for the answer, you will know with a perfect knowledge what you should do.

What are you looking for? Improvement.

Paul admonished us not to be “conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:2) What does it mean to be transformed? It means that you actually change. Change for the better is the outcome you are seeking when you test truth.

The Lord said that “wisdom is justified of all her children.” (Luke 7:35) He also said: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” (John 7:17) What do these sayings mean? The Lord was saying that if you test putative truth, you will see its consequences and know whether it improves or degrades. This is what John was teaching when he said: “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)

Testing differentiates what is beneficial from what is not. Testing means exposing an idea to reality and evaluating its fruits.

For example, a house will look the same whether it is built on sand or a rock until floods come.

Wheat and tares look the same until harvest time. The only way to filter wheat and tares is to plant the seed and let them grow until you can distinguish them. If you are willing to assume a putative truth might be true, you will know for sure whether or not it is as it matures and bears consequences.

When the consequences come, and if you pay attention, you will see whether the putative truth bears good fruit or evil fruit—whether it improves you or degrades you.

Light and truth transform you. They renew your mind, and provide a wider lens on what is good. They show you a more accurate and expansive view of God and God's character. How does the putative truth affect your kindness, generosity, patience, endurance, meekness, humility, knowledge, wisdom, etc.?

How does the putative truth affect your resilience? Does it help you exercise greater trust in God, in spite of exposure to greater trials? To a greater extent than most realize, God's grace shields us from the full spectrum of the awfulness of this life. One goal of the gospel is to build up our knowledge to the point where we can maintain a godly character in the face of the full scope of reality. Any true principle ought to assist us in this pursuit. True principles are powerful, they enable us to do and endure things we could not otherwise do or endure. By living this principle, are you more capable, less capable, or equally capable of dealing with the seen and unseen vicissitudes of life?

The technique of testing is not a license to ignore the light within you and give place to ideas that you know are wrong. Rather, it is an invitation to actively consider everything in your life in the light of whether it invites you to improve or whether it degrades you.

“Fruit” is a scriptural term that refers to the outcomes of a certain belief. Why is fruit an important concept in the search for truth? Because fruit is evidence that penetrates through our limited capability to recognize truth directly.

Many times in the scriptures we read the phrase, “the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not.” What does it mean for light to shine in the darkness? What does it mean for the darkness to not comprehend it?

Light exists by degrees. Light is ever-present in its fullness, but it is not perceived or accepted in its fullness. A creation story from a translation of the Bible designed to preserve the meanings of words from the original language illustrates this idea: “The Light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness did not understand it or overpower it or appropriate it or absorb it [and is unreceptive to it].” (John 1:5, AMP)

The darkness is any part of us—our beliefs, feelings, actions, thoughts, etc.—that deviates from a fullness of God in some way. We only perceive some very small degree of this deviation. To perceive all of it would require the same knowledge God has. We can only perceive it in terms of the degree of light we have acquired and assimilated. We can only estimate our deviation from God to the extent that he has revealed himself to us personally. This begins with an awareness of basic right and wrong, and from there can progress a great deal further.

Just as we are extraordinarily limited in our perception of our deviation from God, and for the same reasons, we are extraordinarily limited in our awareness and assessment of greater truth than we presently hold.

Each of God’s creations has a varied awareness of the fullness of light that emanates from God. Matter of a lower degree of light can perceive light to a point just beyond what it itself has attained, but nothing beyond. Because of our blindness to light beyond what we presently possess, it is of utmost importance to learn how to recognize higher truth based on the fruit it produces. Light leaves clues, and we can perceive the clues even if we can’t perceive the light. This strategy is analogous to our inability to look directly at the sun. Though we can’t see the details of the sun directly with our eyes, we can look at its effects. We can feel the heat on our skin when we walk into it, and we can see the green grass and green leaves that grow from it.

The Savior taught that true doctrine can be proven by the fruits it produces. He taught that it was both necessary and possible to prove candidate truth. He taught that new truth is always accompanied by signs.

We search in order to find two kinds of fruit: charismatic and rational. Charismatic fruit consists of experiences we have had that support a principle. In this category, we could place Paul’s witness of Christ: He saw; therefore, he knew. We could place Joseph of Egypt’s dream of the 14 years of plenty and famine in this category. In fact, the scriptures are full of visitations, visions, dreams, and voices that all serve as charismatic evidence for a particular idea. We should exercise extreme caution in considering emotional experiences as charismatic evidence.

Rational fruit is a historical, scriptural, or logical argument that supports or contradicts a given principle. Rational fruit can be evaluated absent of experience. Rational fruit is a powerful tool for disproving principles, since only one counterexample is needed to disprove something. (Alma 30 provides an excellent example of a rational argument used to root out falsehood.) But rational argument has another more important use. While charismatic experience is how we gain unshakeable testimonies of truth, charismatic experiences come largely as the result of experimenting on God’s word. Without logical, scriptural, or historical reason to believe on a proffered principle, one will not have enough faith to experiment on it. Rational evidence provides a bridge between where we currently stand and where we need to stand in order to receive a charismatic witness.

Unfortunately, not all “fruit” is good fruit.

Throughout time there have been men who practiced counterfeit miracles. Remember that truth produces works, independent of the intent of the truth holder. Satan’s power comes from his possession of truth, not his desires, which are evil. The priests of Pharaoh were able to imitate many of the miracles the Lord commanded Moses to perform. Had the Israelites allowed miracles to convince them of truthfulness, they would have had as much reason to believe the Pharaoh as they would Moses.

Elijah’s challenge to the priests of Baal indicates that they, too, performed miracles. He challenged them to call down fire from their God. They accepted his invitation, suggesting that they had done similar works before (see 1 Kings 18).

These counterfeits are not limited to the Old Testament. The book of Acts contains the accounts of Elymas and Simon, sorcerers who fooled men into thinking they had God’s power (see Acts 13 and Acts 8).

If you consider the ability to perform miracles an indication of truthfulness, you will be deceived, for the devil has power to perform miracles.

The key to avoiding deception is to remember that supernatural power is not a witness of truth. Improvement is. The glory of God is not miracles, it is intelligence. It is improvement. It is greater capacity to withstand reality, greater awareness of reality, and greater adherence to godly character in spite of every obstacle and contradiction.

By showing fruit that could only come through God's approbation, Jesus showed he possessed higher light, even if that light was beyond the comprehension of those to whom he ministered.

Miracles from Satan do not entice you to do good. They do not entice you to improve. They do not help you withstand the challenges of life. They weaken you, making you dependent on things outside of your control.

Finally, it is important to address the importance of specific attribution. Truth produces good fruit. However, the possession of good fruit doesn’t imply that your assignment of what caused it is correct or complete.

If you misattribute a correct conclusion to a given premise, you will hold that premise as improving you, when in reality it could be detrimental. For example, suppose that God tells you that the U.S. Constitution is inspired. You could conclude that everything that the U.S. government does is sanctioned by God. That belief would degrade you, and lead to a lower order life than the truth.

Don’t fool yourself into writing off a challenge to one of your beliefs just because you have experienced blessings that you attribute to that belief.

Chapter 13: Questions and Contradictions

Truth is unknowably infinite. We can’t interact with the infinite. So, we approximate. Though necessary, approximation brings the unpleasant side effect of rounding error. Our awareness will always include things that are not correct or incomplete, and each example of this has the potential to cause unnecessary suffering.

The extent (and accuracy of) your approximation of truth defines the degree to which you benefit from it. Our approximation informs how we interact with life and provides the means for action, but also limits our thinking and prevents us from perceiving what is better.

We should always seek for more awareness: on things we think we know, on things we know we don’t know, and on things we don’t know we don’t know.

In order to expand our light and truth, asking questions is necessary. Jesus frequently taught his disciples by asking questions. Questions are the best way to obtain further light and truth on any subject. Questions are so effective at expanding awareness because they are the most direct way to leverage the light you already have within you.

It is vital to understand how you receive light and truth from God. It doesn’t come from other people or experiences. It comes as you pay attention to the light inside of you in response to the external catalysts. One way you can pay more attention to that light is to learn how to actively query it.

The light within you is a gift from God (see John 1:9). This light acts like an oracle. You ask it questions, it gives you answers. This mechanism is meant to be a central part of how you learn and grow. Ignorance of how it functions or voluntary failure to engage it is equivalent to turning away from the very purpose for which you were born.

You cannot claim to love light and truth and simultaneously despise, reject, or neglect the light within you. Those who do so demonstrate they are unfit, or “unworthy,” to receive more because they do not access greater light and truth even when given abundant opportunity to do so. Consequently, they are damned, which literally means stopped in their acquisition of knowledge.

Failure to ask questions, receive answers, and act in accordance with the light and truth received is likened unto burying one’s talent.

Those who voluntarily neglect or refuse to receive more light and truth from God by failing to ask questions or by not acting in accordance with what they have received and believe to be true actually lose light and truth and are taken captive by the devil (see 1 Nephi 10:19; Alma 12:10-11; D&C 93:39).

God can only reveal as much truth to a person as they are prepared to receive. What happens, then, if one asks a question whose answer they are not ready to receive? God’s answer to such a person will be partial—it will consist of what they are ready to receive. To the person who is fully ready, the full answer will be given. This is one reason why two people can pray over the same question and receive two seemingly different answers.

We seek further truth by questioning our present understanding of things. If we assume we know everything, or that everything we know is true and final (which is the same), we shouldn’t be surprised if we are not given more light and truth. To counter the corrosive influence of confidence, Paul said, “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.” (1 Corinthians 3:18)

Asking questions is among the most important skills we must develop in our quest to know God. Good askers have confidence in God’s willingness to respond. They are suspicious of what others say. They realize that the vast majority of people have no idea what they are talking about most of the time. They are also suspicious of what they already believe they know. They are willing to be wrong. They are able to suspend judgment on an issue until more facts are gathered. Because their belief is constructed based on their observations over time, they expect that their belief will change as they make more observations.

We ought to believe what we have found to be true, not evaluate what is true based on what we already believe. Moses’ journey closer to God was punctuated with moments where he learned things he had never before supposed (see Moses 1:10). We are no different. We progress towards God not only by learning new things but also by rejecting old things we previously believed in that are false. If we limit our investigation to what we already believe to be true, we will never approach closer to God than we currently are.

Jesus repeatedly said, “ask and ye shall receive.” Magnificent things happen when you ask why. “Why” questions have high information answers. They are very effective at triggering a conversation with God.

Scriptures are a fantastic generator of questions to the insightful reader. How much more could everyone learn if they would stop when they don’t understand something, and ask the Lord instead of skipping over mysterious portions! Learning truth while reading the scriptures is like ironing a shirt. If you pass over a wrinkle of misunderstanding you are assuring that the job will have to be done again. It pays to ask yourself why you are bothering to read the scriptures in the first place. If your purpose is to cross off the task of reading from your list of things to do, skipping questions fulfills what you are after. If you are reading to seek further light and truth, then smoothing that wrinkle is the reason you are reading in the first place.

Sincere questions are often responded to with advice from others to “just trust God.” This is equivalent to receiving advice to stop growing in your awareness. God will answer any sincere question. Beware of any who tell you not to ask questions or that certain questions are off limits. They are of limited understanding, and listening to them will ensure your understanding will never grow beyond theirs. “Wherefore, now after I have spoken these words, if ye cannot understand them it will be because ye ask not, neither do ye knock; wherefore, ye are not brought into the light, but must perish in the dark.” (2 Nephi 32:4)

God doesn’t want you to just trust him. He wants you to understand. Don't stop at “trust God.” Ask him why. If you don't come to the point where you understand why something is as it is, you haven't derived the value God intended you to get out of the experience. You are paying the full price of experience without getting the most critical part of the bargain in return. If God really does all things out of love, and the scriptures are true, then you should be able to learn how it is that whatever you are experiencing is a part of that.

We take too much for granted. Relentlessly ask why. We ought to ask why for everything we believe, and if there is no answer, look for something better.

Questioning doesn’t just mean asking God. Asking “why” isn’t just about praying and asking God why something is the way it is. Asking “what” isn’t just about praying and asking God more about something. God has given us time, resources, and intellectual capability to reason things out. We should pray and ask God questions, but it would be foolish to think that he will answer us if we are not doing what we can to find the answers ourselves.

Information is rarely presented in terms of premises. Rather, information is almost always presented as conclusions. Premises—not conclusions—are the key to new truth. Asking questions is the key to investigating the premises that the conclusions we hear rely on.

Each principle stands or falls on its own. It is a false tradition to assume that because one principle is true, all principles bundled together by some person or group are also true. We must learn how to ask specific questions, which might have limited application.

Asking questions enables a person to break the conclusion handed to them into the premises it is based on and test each one of those premises for contradictions. Since all people hold different quantities of truth, it is essential to interpret premises in the light that you have, not rely on the light of another to do it for you. Furthermore, for the same reasons, investigating the premises of another’s conclusions can lead to your discovering that they have more light than you.

The lack of sophistication and extent of our questions limits our learning far more than our actual observations do. The way we ask questions will inform what we believe more than anything else. So much more information is available if we would just ask better questions.

In forming questions, we should be specific. Ill-formed questions yield less-effective answers. Yes/no questions unintentionally frame the situation in a way that constrains what truth can be conveyed. “Should I do ____” type questions, for example, force the answer to be option one or two, but do not open the door to a better option three.

God is not limited to one-word answers. He wants to actually speak to you. Do not betray your lack of faith by asking yes or no questions. The pinnacle of experience with God is not his giving you simple yes or no answers. You are not a puppet. He wants you to not only know what, but why. He wants to reason with you.

When truth evaluation is reduced to feelings, it becomes impossible to persuade, no matter how certain and clear the facts, because most often the believer feels bad when prior held beliefs are contradicted (this is called cognitive dissonance). Those dependent upon feelings to maintain status quo beliefs are thus compelled to defend those feelings, whether or not those beliefs are true. Consequently, instead of debating the correctness or incorrectness of doctrine, which can be established through scriptural, rational, and historical investigation, one must defend against feelings.

We have no right to feel strongly about something for which we cannot provide either charismatic or rational evidence. The ideas themselves should be the focus, not feelings (see the chapter, “Revelation”). The natural man is an enemy to God; finding truth requires us to yield our emotive response—which is carnal—to the voice of the Holy Ghost, the voice of reason.

Peter taught that we should “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” (1 Peter 3:15) “A reason” implies that there are true facts, evidences, or observations supporting a given belief.

A sincere search for truth must be a consistent rational evaluation of new evidences, both those that support and those that refute currently held positions. In order to search for truth, then, one must be able to enumerate the reasons for their currently held beliefs. A surprising number of people defend their own beliefs without any substance at all. Instead, their entire argument consists of a few tired logical fallacies. These ineffective attempts fail to persuade because one has no reason to consider something until they have been given a reason to believe the new idea is at least possible. Moreover, an individual whose beliefs are not substantiated cannot be convinced of higher truth because it is impossible to argue against an irrationally held position.

False ideas do not stand up to scripture, logic, or history. For example, Sherem taught both that man “cannot tell of things to come” and also that he knew that Christ would never come (see Jacob 7:7,9).

If you do not question what others automatically assume to be true, you cannot be any different than they are.

In the midst of his affliction, Job said: “Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.” (Job 13:3) He got the chance, and you can read what that looked like in the final chapters of Job.

Job was not unique. The Lord desires to reason with each of his children. It is a critical means of conveying great quantities of information. He says: “Produce your cause, saith the Lord; bring forth your strong reasons.” (Isaiah 41:21) He says: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.” (Isaiah 1:18)

Reasoning with the Lord is a back-and-forth conversation where we present what we think is right and the Lord explains why something else is better. It is a process of searching for what best improves. The volume of information flow in this exercise is orders of magnitude greater than what can be conveyed in simple yes-or-no questions.

You should also exercise extreme care when it comes to vocabulary. Ideological jargon precludes open-mindedness. For example, every faith group has developed a vocabulary of words whose usage both invokes strong feelings and makes us think imprecisely. Words like authority, prophet, sustain, keys, and apostasy, for instance, have very charged meanings in LDS crowds. Using these words shuts down thought, making it very difficult for an adherent to think freely instead of along sanctioned lines. We should strive to use more precise words: instead of using nonspecific terms, use the meaning of the term that you intend. For example, when you say “prophet,” do you mean one who receives and announces predictions of the future from God, or do you mean someone who has been selected by a group of men from their ranks as the leader of a church? If you are asking “is so-and-so a prophet,” do you really mean “should I assume that everything so-and-so does is from you, God?”

How you frame a question makes a tremendous difference in the answers you receive. Say what you actually mean, and you will have a new source of questions to ask. A vague vocabulary makes for a vague awareness. Vague questions can only lead to vague answers. An articulate, precise question will lead to an articulate, precise answer.

One way to reason is to put questions into a hypothesis form, where observations or experiments might be designed to prove them wrong.

This technique is the essential way to control for absurdities while remaining open-minded. Before adopting this approach, realize that it requires you to be willing to accept that something you believe is wrong. If you don’t believe in the possibility of counter evidence to something you believe, don’t bother trying to question it.

Framing as a hypothesis goes something like this: think of a belief. Now, phrase it in a specific way. This is important, because the automatic reaction to identifying a belief as false is to claim that the original statement of the belief wasn’t what you meant. As long as you don’t explicitly define what you mean, you can’t actually evaluate it.

Now, for each specific point, search to see whether you have observed a contradiction. If there is, then that point is false, and unless you can rephrase your belief without it, your belief is, too.

Let’s take an example. Suppose I think college is good. I should ask myself why. Suppose my answer is, “college is good because if you get a college degree you will have a better career.” Now I ask what I mean by a better career, and rephrase more specifically: “College is good because a college degree earns you more money.” Now, I look for contradictions. Do all college degree holders earn more money than all who do not have a degree? No. Now I have to rephrase my belief: “College is sometimes good because sometimes a college degree earns you more money.” That one checks out, but it is much weaker. The first belief suggests everyone should go to college. The second suggests that more is needed before deciding whether it is a good idea. You can continue with this specific example, and eventually you’ll end up with something like “College is good if you want to major in computer science. Otherwise, you shouldn’t go to college.”

This idea of specification and testing is called falsifiability. While something can never be proven right, things can be proven wrong, and this is what falsifiability is all about. If something is proven wrong, it is wrong. If it is not proven wrong, it is right enough, for now.

An unfalsifiable position is always the last position you will ever hold on any given topic. This is, essentially, damnation, because you limit yourself to the glory associated with the current law you live. You have drawn a line in the sand beyond which you are not willing to move, whether or not greater truth exists.

Falsifiability highlights the danger of dogmatic assertions unattached from specific evidences. Consider the college statement above. It is obvious that one who embraces the first version of the college belief will live a very different life than one who holds the last version.

Challenge your assumptions. If you don't challenge what you have, you can never get more than what you have. If you don't have what you want, you have to get something different. Set out to prove yourself wrong.

Higher truth can be acquired through the recognition of the contradictions it tends to generate. Those who think critically about their present beliefs will enumerate areas that make no sense. These apparent contradictions are rich sources for further light and truth, because they expose the searcher to the need for a higher level of light and truth, as well as provide the motivation to obtain it.

One way to discover further light and truth is to ponder problems that persist in your current paradigm. Are you receiving the outcomes that you expected from your current beliefs? Do you have questions that seem to not have answers?

Abraham found himself unsatisfied in his inherited paradigm. He paid attention to the scriptures he was reading, and noticed that there were greater blessings available to him than those offered him by the theology of his father (see Abraham 1:1-2).

Every belief structure can be thought of as a map. Our observational experience is akin to the actual terrain. For whatever reason, most people of faith are not very apt at comparing their map to the surrounding terrain. Any difference in the two is contradiction.

Humans see the world as a narrative. We collect observations and build a story around them. Frequently, it is the narrative that forms the center of our understanding, not the observations. Therefore, when new, contrary observations arise, we tend to ignore them, because they don't fit our narrative. Narratives are stiff—they don't like to flex. Someone who has made up their mind about something is very unlikely to change their position, even when presented with clearly contrary evidence.

Moving forward tends to require letting go of what has served us until this point. Once we discover limited utility in a previously held belief, it is time to find something better.

Considering contradictions is like crossing monkey bars. Crossing monkey bars requires you to let go of what you held previously. Even though that trailing bar was perfectly secure, even though it was at one point exactly what got you ahead of where you were, you have to let it go. When you get really good at trusting the system, you might even get up some momentum and skip bars on your traversal.

The fullness of God’s truth cannot be possessed while we retain our prepossessed feelings and notions. We must advance step by step from where we stand to where he stands.

To live open-mindedly, to live like a child, you have to be completely willing to let go of what you think you know at any moment. You have to be completely skeptical of everything you think you know, unsure of anything. How does this work with faith and hope? You act as if what you believe is absolutely true, but you walk in a constant willingness to learn that it is not. This is living on a razor's edge, living contrary to everything that is human nature.

So few people cultivate this ability that finding someone who does it— someone who is truly open-minded—may be the rarest thing on this earth. But this is what it means to be humble. To be willing to live zealously for your current perspective yet turn from it in a moment when presented sufficient reason to is to be willing to be the biggest fool. You will experience indescribable humiliation constantly as your previous best ideas turn out to be incomplete or even incorrect. Still, if you hold anything back, you will find that your partial effort is insufficient to uncover the next level of truth.

What does it mean to love darkness rather than light? The Lord said.

It is not totally clear from this passage what it means to “hate the light” and not come to the light. This passage lays it out more clearly.

Hating the light and not asking questions are the same thing. Avoiding the light and not asking questions are the same thing.

Does this characterization seem extreme? Consider why someone would shy away from asking questions.

Isaiah was sent to king Ahaz to tell him to ask for a sign to prove that what God was saying was true.

Ahaz declined to ask for a sign because he wanted to ignore the other things God had said. If he had asked for a sign, and received one, he would no longer be able to ignore the other things God had told him.

Some would counter by saying “but why should I question something I already know? Isn’t that sowing the seeds of doubt?”

Asking questions should not be considered as cynicism or negative criticism. There is a difference between taking a toy apart to see how it works, and smashing it into pieces because you want to destroy it. This is still true if, despite your best and most careful effort, you are not able to reassemble the toy after taking it apart.

We make a grave mistake when we assume that questioning leads to doubts. In reality, questioning not only leads to faith, but it is the only path that leads to faith, since faith cannot be had in false principles, and the only way to establish which principles are true is to ask God.

Any level of awareness will present questions whose answers require a higher order of awareness. This is a key principle. In this case, generating questions identifies the limitations of the present level of understanding and invites a conduit of further light from God in the revelation of a higher order of understanding. Without questions, you are literally damned— limited to your present level of understanding.

This is the one and only reason you would decline from asking questions: because you love a lie. Instead, you should come “to the light” and “have your deeds” reproved, to see whether “they are wrought in God.” (see John 3, quoted above).

Questions are the mechanism for God revealing more light and truth to you. Asking questions can only lead you closer to truth and to God, not farther away.

Questioning present understanding, having an open mind, and being willing to let go of lesser truths for greater ones will greatly improve the measure of wisdom God is able to impart to us. God will increase the revelation he gives a man commensurate with the increase of questions he has.

Anyone who encounters God will have his paradigm shifted. A man whose mind doesn't change has not encountered God, or has turned away from him.

Anyone who encounters God will have a stronger thirst for truth, and many more questions continually. A man who has no questions does not know God, or has turned away from him. A man without questions is not receiving revelation.

Chapter 14: Constraints and Consequences

God “doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world.” (2 Nephi 26:24) Anything that happens is for a reason, and “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Everything he does is to the end of bringing to pass the eternal life of man, maximizing the happiness of man, and preventing as much suffering as possible.

And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it. (Mosiah 2:41)

If this is the case, why are so many people unhappy? Why is there so much suffering? And why will the vast majority of mankind go to hell?

The answers to these questions are found in two words: constraints and consequences.

A constraint is an inalterable piece of a problem. For example, if you have a maze where the objective is to connect the start point to the end point, the maze is constrained by your inability to pass through the walls. Consequences are the effects that follow from causes.

Understanding constraints and consequences is as critical to acquiring increased light and truth as knowing the layout and dimensions of a room is to furnishing it. Increasing light and truth requires increasing your awareness of constraints and consequences.

The Lord said.

Truth is things as they are. God knows all truth, but he does not create it. It is not created. Truth is independent, pre-existent, and infinite.

God is God because he conforms to truth. He received truth and glory— which means it existed before he did. He did it through a process where he iteratively acquired a greater awareness and then reconciled it to the increased light he received. We will become like him inasmuch as we do the same.

One example of how the Lord conformed to truth was provided when he was baptized by John. They both realized that John was unworthy of the task, yet the Lord indicated that he was submitting to principles beyond his ability to influence.

Truth is not things as we wish they were. God himself is both empowered and constrained by his submission to truth. When the Lord says “it must needs be done in mine own way” (D&C 104:16), it is not because of some arbitrary preference he might have. It is because there is no other way.

We are also empowered and constrained by our submission to truth. In our case, all truth we have access to comes through him, because he has already obtained it, and is the source of it to us. The gospel is the mechanism whereby we can obtain it.

We must embrace reality. We don’t get to decide which rules we will play by. Reality does not care how we feel about the rules. They just are.

We are told that “...when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (D&C 130:21) Another way of saying this is “every outcome is a consequence of predetermined conditions” or “everything that happens is a result of predetermined conditions.”

In mortality, we can either choose to learn the rules and play the game, or we choose to lose, and suffer all the while without understanding why.

We don’t get to pick the rules, but we do decide how diligently we will seek them out and how closely we will pay attention to them. This process is called optimization.

Optimization is about getting the most of something you want given the unavoidable obstacles and unchangeable consequences in the environment. Almost all real problems have no unconstrained solutions. There are less-than-ideal consequences in every solution to the hardest problems. Optimization recognizes this, and seeks the best solution given that none are free from undesirable sub-outcomes.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, most people believe that with enough scientific advancement and social control, we can create an environment free from constraints and consequences. The unconstrained worldview is epitomized by the character Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, who demands a laundry list of physically impossible outcomes, and threatens to destroy everyone else’s happiness unless they find a way of making it happen. Veruca and Charlie share their desire to be the factory owner, but they differ greatly in their efforts to obtain it. Charlie believes in a constrained system—where some things are as they are and can’t be changed. Veruca doesn’t care to recognize the limitations of reality and, predictably, ends up suffering a great deal.

Belief in an unconstrained reality is accelerating in depth and breadth in spite of evidence to the contrary, and it is bleeding over into our spiritual beliefs. In spiritual and temporal settings alike, this unconstrained worldview creates unbridled hatred and animosity as reality continuously crashes against the belief that by wishing we can create something different and better than things as they really are. We all suffer from the unavoidable consequences of acting against evident reality, rejecting functional solutions while holding out for unrealistic ones.

In spiritual settings, this is manifest by the numerous people who write off the existence of God for the most simplistic reasons. These are they who, after experiencing some degree of suffering or some hole in previously held dogma, conclude that there can be no God. For them, a system of truth that requires study, experimentation, and growth is not good enough. They want something that is complete and instant, something that has no questions, no struggles, and requires no effort.

Unfortunately, such a system is physically impossible. It has actually been mathematically proven that any system will generate questions that it cannot answer. A higher order system is always required. The proof applies to all systems, and is as true in temporal things as spiritual ones. A person who does not accept constrained reality, in other words, is going to endure unnecessary suffering in all aspects of life because they refuse to contend with a great deal of what is all around them. They will stumble through miserable lives without accomplishing nearly as much as they could have, constantly being unpleasantly surprised by many outcomes they should have seen coming and could have prepared for. Not surprisingly, those who believe in an unconstrained reality have much higher incidence of anxiety, depression, and suicide than those who believe in a constrained reality. This stuff really matters.

One of the characteristics of reality that we can’t change is the existence of opposition. There is opposition in all things: “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad.” (2 Nephi 2:11)

Whether in life or death, and at every level of truth, everything has its complement. Those who enjoy a greater degree of glory do not do it in a vacuum free from wickedness, temptation, misery, or suffering. Instead, their glory includes an expanded awareness of all these things. Their expanded happiness, joy, and enjoyment is not from an absence of negative things, but because they are aware of and have overcome the negative things.

Your pathway to increased happiness, like everyone else’s, unavoidably runs right through increased awareness of wickedness, temptation, misery, and suffering. These things can’t be done away with. The experiences they bring are required to encounter something better.

We sometimes think we are full of faith. Here is a test to evaluate whether this is the case: If you were temporarily omnipotent, what would you change about this world? Would you bring those who do evil to justice? Would you make a beautiful paradise for yourself and those like you? Would you heal the sick? Feed all the poor? Would you arrange for the lonely to be visited? Perhaps the last thing you would think of is leaving everything exactly like it is. You see, God not only has all power, but he also has all knowledge, all wisdom, and all love. If you really believe that, then how could you suggest that there is a better way than what he has ordained? A simple and silly thought experiment as this reveals that we have very little faith, indeed.

But, you might say, Jesus performed miracles that dramatically changed reality. That is correct. And he still does.

But why didn’t Jesus heal everyone? Why doesn’t he? What is happening when we ask to be healed?

The answers to these questions and the balance between God’s power and God’s actions are found in what is “expedient.” Expedient is a scriptural term that means “that which improves.” Remember, God only does what helps people.

An exploration of his phrase “according to your faith be it unto you” can help clarify this idea. “According to your faith be it unto you” means to the degree that what you desire accords with what would benefit you according to your sincere understanding of God’s will, it will be done. This is the standard the Lord uses to exercise his power, and it ought to be the standard we use in asking for his power.

In his mortal ministry, Jesus showed that the recipe for obtaining a miracle was not about persuading God to change his mind, but about a mental, soul-searching process of the individual to determine if what they are asking is right according to their sincere current understanding of right and wrong. Escape from pain is not right, nor is encounter of pleasure. There is a moral underpinning to right and wrong that transcends mere pleasure and pain. That definition of morality is variable, specific to an individual’s current understanding of God and what is good. You can't lie to yourself and live the benefits of the truth.

Using what you have learned here, you can upgrade your perceptions of reality.

Why do bad things happen to bad people? Bad things that happen to bad people are the natural consequence of the beliefs of bad people. They shield themselves from the full scope of reality through willfully denying what God tries to show them about reality, and therefore encounter the negative consequences of reality that they would have otherwise avoided.

Why do good things happen to bad people? They don’t. The things sometimes regarded as good things that happen to bad people are actually misperceived as good. Pleasure is not universally good. It frequently occurs in situations that will lead to net pain, certainly when the full spectrum of experience (which consists not only of bodily pleasure and pain, but mental pleasure and pain) are considered. Bad people, by definition, engage in attitudes and behaviors that detract from their net well-being. Any seemingly good thing that happens to them is either not good or in response to that segment of their attitudes and actions that corresponds with his will to the degree they understand it.

Why do bad things happen to good people? They don’t. The things sometimes regarded as bad things that happen to good people are actually misperceived as bad. Pain is not universally bad. It frequently occurs in situations that will lead to net pleasure, certainly when the full spectrum of experience (which consists not only of bodily pleasure and pain, but mental pleasure and pain) are considered. Good people, by definition, engage in attitudes and behaviors that increase their net well-being. Any seemingly bad thing that happens to them is either not bad or is in response to that segment of their attitudes and actions that do not accord with his will to the degree they understand it.

Why do good things happen to good people? Good things that happen to good people are the natural consequence of the beliefs of good people. They embrace a greater scope of reality through willfully seeking and obeying what God tries to show them about reality, and therefore encounter the positive consequences of reality that they would have otherwise not enjoyed.

Is it true that God sends rain and sun on both the just and unjust? Yes and no. This statement is true only in terms of the individuals’ perception. From God’s perspective, whatever rain he sends on the just is only for the purpose of watering their crops, so to speak: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Every experience in the life of those who love God is precisely what they need to acquire the light and truth that keeps them from greater fellowship with God.

So much of suffering in life comes from desiring what is contrary to reality. While many great potential outcomes remain unrealized due to insufficient desire in the individuals who have the power to make them reality, many more outcomes are sought that have zero possibility of fulfillment, because they are contrary to the laws of the universe as given by God.

Discovering and pondering previously unseen constraints can vastly reduce one’s suffering in life. Many of these constraints can be found by studying the scriptures. These can be found, for example, in the wisdom literature, in sermons, and in what are broadly called “the commandments,” and are really instructions for better living.

Since the goal of truth is improvement, understanding constraints is vital to acquiring, assimilating, and dispensing truth. The more constraints you are aware of and understand, the more effectively you can improve and help others to improve.

The entire universe functions through cause and effect, though almost all of those relationships lie outside of human understanding. These causes and effects are not arbitrary. They are intrinsic to the system. While “[God] will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:6), that rendering is not from his arbitrary choice, but through the natural outcomes of those deeds.

God knows all things. “He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever.” (D&C 88:41)

No human will ever encounter a situation that God does not perfectly predict and understand. When we seek to obtain more light and truth, we are seeking to more perfectly understand what God can. We are seeking to more correctly understand cause and effect.

Cause and effect combine both elements of God’s glory: his awareness and his character. The more we understand cause and effect, the more our awareness will increase and the more we will understand the reason God acts as he does.

It is abundantly clear that we are woefully ignorant of both positive and negative consequences in this life. The simplest proof of our lack of understanding is to consider how often people are surprised by what happens in life: by what their children choose to do, by what their circumstances are later in life, by what happens to them at work, or even what happens in a given day.

The degree to which you are surprised by outcomes is a clue as to how much light and knowledge you lack. Surprise is the opposite of the way creation works. God reveals his mysteries to everyone who will listen, and the signal is broadcasting at all times.

One way of understanding the difference between the fullness of light and truth associated with our mortal existence and the amount of light and truth you possess is to realize that a fullness of light and truth would mean that you are perfectly aware of all causes and effects in mortality: all opportunities afforded to you in this life; all actions required to take full advantage of them, and all effects of all alternatives. Joseph Smith said: “Why be so certain that you comprehend the things of God, when all things with you are so uncertain?” (TPJS p. 230) If you are surprised by something, take it as an indication that you lack understanding in that area and that what you currently believe is incorrect or incomplete.

In a sense, reality doesn’t happen to you, it is revealed to you through what happens. The consequences of reality are landmarks that indicate to us where our perspective deviates from things as they really are. Because we reap what we sow, you can use the outcomes in your life as an indication of the correctness of the premises you believe. If you plant a pumpkin seed and a turnip grows, chances are your understanding of the process is mistaken.

Many times, we think of the process of salvation in terms of being refined—of having things removed from you. This is good, but incomplete. The acquisition and assimilation of truth isn't like the game Operation where God takes some forceps and yanks some undesirable quality out of you. Instead, God exposes you to a measure of your ignorance of reality through revealing a little bit more of things as they really are. You then get to choose: Do I ignore this tidbit, do I let it fester, or do I fix it by changing my understanding of myself and the world?

You can choose to fight reality, but you won’t win. Fighting reality is like headbutting a brick wall. It is within your ability to try, but not to succeed.

God’s judgment can be negative, but can also be positive. In either case, it is simply the consequences of reality. It is really just his lifting of the veil and exposing us to the fullness of mortal truth. All hidden things are revealed, and we are perfectly aware of “our guilt” (see Alma 11:43).

We will be perfectly aware of all causes and effects in mortality: all opportunities afforded to you in this life, all actions required to take full advantage of them, and all effects of all alternatives. We will therefore also be perfectly aware of what we lost out on because we would not seek what was placed right into our grasp, would not heed what we were being shown, and would not become what we were meant to become.

Most people flee from light, choosing to ignore what would improve them. The consequences of ignoring new truth go beyond losing out on the benefits of having assimilated it. You will also find that you will suddenly lose some previously accepted truths—either subconsciously, or because they suddenly make no sense to you. Some very few will consistently rejoice in the correction, opting to grow closer to God by embracing more of what it is he knows and becoming more of how he is.

The light reveals what was previously unknown. God said: “if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” (Ether 12:27)

Reality tends to be awful. It tears us apart. Loved ones die. Innocent people suffer. Pets get cancer. We regard these high intensity bad things as rare, but all things are before God continuously. If you knew all things, like God does, they would have been ever present before you, long before they happened. But there are positive consequences as well. Knowledge removes surprise, doubt, and fear. When all things are before you, you learn systems that overcome those things, and what is rare in the lives of others is something your normal way of being rises above.

The revelation of more truth is not a punishment for those who love God and obey him. It is a gift. If you love and obey God, these things are given because God trusts you and knows that you have the capacity to overcome them and to use them to expose the principles and understanding you lack. The suffering is for a moment, but the benefits last forever if you trust him and turn to him and learn what it is he is trying to teach you.

The consequences of reality are tied to the level of truth you possess. There are different consequences at different levels.

Some progressive consequences of higher truth are positive. The level of truth you possess sanctifies you, or makes you capable of receiving all the blessings reaped as a natural consequence of living the truths at that level: “that which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same.” (D&C 88:34)

Miracles are an example of consequences of higher order truth. Miracles are not the suspension of natural law. Instead, a miracle is the substitution of higher order consequences into a lower order world. The degree of light and truth possessed by the worker of the miracle determines what level of cause and effect applies to the situation. A caveman would regard the operation of a lighter as a miracle, yet a modern person would see it simply as the cause and effect of a higher order system. In this life, we suffer all the effects of a lower order kingdom, including death. Yet, by acquiring the light and truth of a higher kingdom, Jesus was able to impose consequences from a higher order: through the sacrifice of his perfect life, all men will be resurrected. The cause (Jesus) and effect (resurrection) of a higher order replace the cause (Adam) and effect (death) of a lower one.

As Jesus said, he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (see Matthew 5:17), and he did so by acquiring the light and truth necessary to obtain and apply the consequences of a higher order.

In all things, God’s power is bound by law, but the law exists in different degrees of order. Acquiring higher levels of light and truth empowers you to exercise the consequences of the higher order. The Lord demonstrated this practice not only in his consummate act, but throughout his ministry. If you reread the New Testament with this principle in mind, you will find the pages open to you an aspect of the gospel you have never before noticed. For example, when the Canaanite woman begged him for her daughter’s healing, he ignored her the first time, and called her a dog the second. The third time, in response to her extreme trust in him (cause), he was able to substitute a higher order effect by healing her in spite of the fact that doing so violated the lower order law of his being sent exclusively to Israel (see Matthew 15:22-28).

Some progressive consequences of higher truth are negative. The level of truth you act against determines the degree of negative consequences you receive.

Those who do not comply with the law corresponding to their level of light will have their light taken away. When this happens, they are exposed to more undesirable consequences, but they are not aware of why those undesirable consequences happen. They are no longer exposed to more than they conform to, “they shall return again to their own place, to enjoy that which they are willing to receive, because they were not willing to enjoy that which they might have received.” (D&C 88:32)

Life, in a sense, is a constant game of gaining better understanding of the rules and playing the game with increased skill. It is essential to learn the actual rules, not just what we think they are. There is a difference between rules and traditions. We waste too much opportunity because someone told us something was impossible when it wasn’t, and too much effort on what is actually impossible because someone told us it was possible.

Beyond what is and isn’t true, there are serious constraints in what God can teach us and when. Some of these are related to limits in capacity. How exactly do you reduce a fullness of truth to a mortal mind? More proximate are the constraints that are self-imposed. We create innumerable synthetic constraints with the ideological barriers we put in place.

Our sacred cows are many. Each false tradition we embrace reduces the light and truth we can possess: “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) These traditions tend to shut down our ability to evaluate new truth that threatens to up-end them.

Each line we draw in the sand is one more obstacle that requires God to water down or chop away at some aspect of truth in order to get us to accept it. Imagine how difficult it would be to teach someone about colors if they refused to open their eyes.

We must be willing to let go of what we currently view as true, or even sacrosanct, in order to progress with God. We must be willing to accept his instruction, correction, and reproof.

As we are willing to allow God to correct our beliefs, he can teach us more directly, without working around so many stumbling blocks. “Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcasses of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever.” (Ezekiel 43:9)

Beliefs are not reality. Beliefs are our perception of reality, which is inherently limited in both accuracy and correctness. Beliefs are completely malleable. They can be anything. You can choose your beliefs, but you cannot choose the consequences that attend the beliefs you choose. You are capable of so much more than the muted output of living in illusion. Why intentionally ignore the pitfalls in your character, when doing so will invariably cause great harm to yourself and others—far more harm than confronting the truth? You should do everything you can to reconcile your beliefs to reality as far as you know it.

Our lack of understanding prevents us from obtaining outcomes we desire, because we do not know the actions that generate them. Consequently, our actions produce effects that we do not want, and also avoid effects we do want. We are far less aware of the effects of our actions than we would like to think. Our awareness deficit both prevents us from obtaining outcomes we desire and causes us to encounter outcomes we don’t desire. An increased awareness of things as they really are—an increase in light and truth—is the only way to obtain more of what we want and less of what we don’t.

Quantify your degree of awareness of the connection between what you seek and what you do. If there is any aspect of anything you believe that does not accord with reality, it is in your best interest to immediately change it. Rather than seeking relief from the consequences of your actions, seek how to improve your actions.

There is the confusion about what happiness actually is. The dictionary defines happiness as pleasure, gratification, and the lack of pain. The dictionary is wrong. Most Christians believe the closer you get to heaven, the less you suffer. Most Christians are wrong.

The closer you get to heaven, the happier you are, and the more knowledge you have. Yet, the more knowledge you have, the more you suffer. “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” (Ecclesiastes 1:18) God suffers. Enoch saw him weep. Therefore, we know that happiness always includes pain. In fact, because there is opposition in all things, the greater the happiness you experience, the greater your suffering will be.

The truth is not a mail order box promising the avoidance of all life's problems from the onset. Those who believe it is will be consistently confronted with soul-wrenching contradictions which shake their very foundations. Instead, it is a process which, when followed, will provide the solution through an understanding of every problem one can face in this life. The soul-wrenching contradictions are not a flaw in the system—they are by design. They are what generates the searching for God that always yields an increment of light and truth. They are what entices us to let go of what we think we know and proceed into the unknown in search of something better than what we have.

Paul said, “Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself.” (Hebrews 12:3) What does it mean to endure such contradiction of sinners? The Lord, possessing a fullness of light, was exposed to people who embraced great darkness. Extreme contrast is a property of truth. The more truth you have, the more contrast you will experience. This contrast doesn’t always make sense, nor seem palatable.

The Lord’s sermon on the mount included several statements describing blessed states that would, to a normal person, seem anything but. Read them slowly.

How would you like to be poor in spirit? What does that mean, and what would it feel like? Do you enjoy mourning? What do you have to endure in order to be considered meek? Is it fun to hunger and thirst? What must you do in order to be considered merciful? What must you sacrifice to be pure in heart? What must be your experience to be called a peacemaker? Do you rejoice in persecution? Being reviled? All of these things are awful. Yet Jesus says those who experience these things are blessed. How can that be?

The truth is repulsive to those who do not yet possess it. Being like God is an acquired taste. The gospel is not cute. Truth is not a gimmick. Jesus described it as a daily cross that we have to carry. Then how is all this a blessing?

The Lord said that his yoke is easy and his burden is light. He also promised that those who follow him will have to give away everything, including their reputations, their money, their families, their property, their carnal security, their character attributes, and even their lives. How can these two ideas reconcile with each other?

The Lord’s yoke is easy, and his burden is light, but only with respect to the alternative. Reality presents constraints that must be acknowledged before any of the gospel makes sense. The lesson is hard enough that all of creation is required to teach it, and even then almost no one will perceive and endure it.

Consider these contradictory axioms.

The more you love, the more you suffer. The more you tell the truth, the less people will believe you. The more focused on God you become, the more you find everyday moments to be part of your religion. The more energy you focus on God, the more productive your temporal affairs become. The more you serve others, the more they will hate you. The more you acquire that helps others, the less they will accept from you. The greater you become at forgiving, the more others will hurt you. The more you learn, the less you are able to teach. The closer you draw to God, the further you drift from humanity. Every sacrifice reduces the pull of your possessions. The more you give away, the more God gives you. The more righteous you become, the more wickedness you see.

What makes the knowledge God has desirable? Everything in mortality ceases to be desirable once you know what it truly costs, that it is actually pretty awful, and how good the alternative is.

Consider this simple analogy. Imagine you married an attractive but awful person with no personality. As they age, you will realize that what you thought was good about them was actually just temporary, and that on a longer scale, marrying them was a really awful idea.

The knowledge and glory of God is repulsive to unsanctified people. Why? Because the glory of God includes the fact that all things are present before him, including the depths of chaos that by his grace elude us. With every increment of acquired truth, these and other contradictions make sense. With every increment of acquired truth, these realities become more palatable.

As one’s spiritual intelligence increases, both the happiness they experience and the pain they experience change. Not only are they deeper and more intense experiences, they are also based on different things than they were at lower levels of truth.

The best analogy for this may be that of love in a relationship. Young love is characterized by the excitement that accompanies new heights of intimacy. Over time, this levels off, and is systematically replaced by stable, but deeper, care for the other person. Love shifts from what you get to what you have to what you give. What you give is a much better love than what you get, but it also hurts a lot more. A divorce after 20 years of dedicated marriage hurts a lot more than a break up after two months.

The bad news is that suffering never ends. The good news is that as you progress in truth, the things that caused you suffering before will no longer cause you suffering. You will overcome them through knowledge. Suffering never ends, but just as with knowledge, it progresses based on increased awareness. Consider this passage in terms of the cause of Alma’s sorrowing.

This man of God was sad because he could see in others the negative consequences of lacking truth that he possessed, and they would not accept it. Perhaps if he were not aware of the power of these truths he held, he would instead be grieved for something more normal, like the lack of food, sleep, money, housing, or companionship. Alma had long ago overcome all these things, and they no longer caused him sorrow.

We read: “to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” (Romans 8:6, see also 2 Nephi 9:39) We can say these words and still not get what they mean.

Among Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jeremiah, Job, Moses, Adam, Enoch, Nephi, Mormon, Moroni, Christ himself, and all the faithful, will you find a single person who went about cheerfully, always finding worldly “happiness” (the lack of suffering) in this fallen world? You will not. Not among the righteous. Their joy, as with Christ’s kingdom, is not of this world (see John 18:36). That doesn’t mean it can’t be found here, but instead means that it is not defined as the world would define it.

Some examples of how people interpret the same event differently can illustrate the power of how we perceive the reality of the co-existence of happiness and sorrow. Laman and Lemuel said, “Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy.” (1 Nephi 17:21) At the same time Laman and Lemuel regarded their deprivation of worldly convenience as suffering, Lehi and Nephi— who were suffering more because of the spiritual burden they carried in ministering to Laman and Lemuel—experienced happiness. Their happiness came not from the presence of temporal pleasure absent of pain, but from the meaning provided by sacrificing for the benefit of others. We see this in the reunion of several missionaries who had been persecuted heavily for years.

Why were these men so happy? Because they had sacrificed so much for the happiness of others.

Enduring happiness—happiness strong enough to carry one through the unavoidable sorrows of existence—comes most directly through the love of Christ (see 1 Nephi 8:10), which means the love Christ has. When we prioritize the joy of loving others as Christ loves us over the so-called happiness the world offers, we encounter strong resilience to the sorrows that relentlessly crash against us as waves on the shore.

The lives of the wicked are filled with suffering. It's the natural consequence of their choices. The wicked choose to act in opposition to rationality because they opt to blind themselves to the truth. They do not see things as they really are, and therefore are hit by the consequences of their choices that they choose to ignore—like a man who likes the look of a rope and decides to carry it without recognizing or admitting that it happens to be attached to a tiger. He gets mauled all day long without coming to the realization that there is a tiger attached to his beloved rope. Instead of letting go of the rope, he goes about his life moaning about how unlucky he is because he gets mauled by a tiger every day when few others do.

The lives of the righteous are filled with sorrow, but it isn't because of their choices. It is because they see things as they really are, and they are filled with sorrow for those who do not. It is their love of others that brings with it their sorrow for them. They see men getting mauled by tigers all day long, and they are already doing everything they can (including taking some of those maulings themselves) to help them, mostly without ever really benefiting them.

So many people endure a seemingly endless chain of suffering in their lives without realizing why. One purpose God has in allowing suffering is to show you the benefits of obedience to truth through exposing you to the natural consequences of decisions contrary to his truth. Sometimes these things are directly and obviously related (such as when an addict loses his family as a consequence of drug habits). Sometimes these connections of cause and effect are non-obvious. Seeking God’s wisdom will enlighten you in surprising ways.

The gospel is about minimizing the illusion, which means minimizing unnecessary suffering.

To invoke the full power of God in your life, you must not only address the direct causes of your suffering, but reconcile your whole life to your best understanding of God.

We have a very narrow set of expectations, and we don't care that we have artificially left out all the trouble that goes with those expectations. We spin up cotton candy realities, and live in constant misery with the coping mechanisms that we've developed to keep the negative consequences of a life of ignorance behind the curtain. Pretending there is a wizard of Oz may enable us to live in the Emerald City, but it doesn't kill the wicked witch. To actually fix the problems requires more truth—it requires venturing out onto the yellow brick road, becoming a more capable person through overcoming challenges, and losing a great deal of innocence in our world view.

Most people say they want to be happy, but they don't want to learn how to be happy, because that requires comprehending the things about themselves that are ugly, and that cause pain. They want to be happy without living after the manner of happiness. They seek for what is impossible.

Chapter 15: Responding to Truth from Others

It would be silly to ask someone if they wanted to go to heaven. The almost universal answer would be yes. This excitement would die down if, attached to that question, were an accurate description of the path. It has been said that everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. Getting to heaven takes far more than dying, of course, but the point remains: we tend to make an artificial separation between the outcomes we seek and the path to obtain them.

Because of the leveled nature of truth, everyone—no matter who they are—faces limitations in their present awareness. These limitations manifest as problems. Pain and uncertainty are symptoms of the limitations of a given level of truth, and though the specifics change at each level of truth, there are always limitations at each level.

Every person seems to desire to have these limitations alleviated. No one likes to experience the gut-wrenching emotional crash of seeing one of your core beliefs inarguably disproven. No one likes to see something or someone they’ve relied upon for comfort fail them. No one likes to experience the fear that comes when you have no idea what comes next, or the realization that everything you thought was solid suddenly isn’t.

And yet, there is a palpable disconnect between cause and effect. Like treating symptoms instead of the disease, we endure unfruitful situations for far longer than is needful.

Seek to change causes, not consequences. Seeking to understand the cause of the undesirable outcomes is the key to changing the outcomes.

There are two types of situations: first, situations in which you know the cause of the undesirable outcomes, but you choose to ignore it, and second, situations in which you are unaware of the cause of the undesirable outcomes. Perhaps surprisingly, both situations are a result of a lack of faith.

In the first situation, you know what is ailing you, but you ignore the changes you know you need to make. This is loving a lie, and is discussed in Part I.

In the second situation, it is less obvious that you are struggling from a lack of faith. The failure here is that you haven’t translated undesirable outcomes into a search for the cause—a search that is one and the same as the search for an expanded awareness. Whenever you experience an undesirable situation, your first question ought to be how you can acquire further light and truth to reveal the cause and cure of these symptoms. It doesn’t matter what the situation is—your dog dying, a prognosis of cancer, losing your job, losing your temper, or not having enough money for bills. 178.

Anytime you experience an unfavorable situation, interpret it as an invitation from God for further light and truth.

Making this connection is critical, because it opens your mind to the possibility that the answer to your search may be found around you. You will start asking questions, which triggers the expansion of your awareness. You will also pay more attention to those around you (literally or figuratively through, for instance, the internet). You will realize that you are not that special. If you have a problem, chances are that there are and have been many others with the same problem. Odds are that at least one of those other people had or has more light than you on the issue, and thanks to our technological advantages, you can probably find their solution in far less time than it took them to figure it out. Through leveraging the light of others in this way, you can obtain solutions to far more problems in far less time than imaginable for almost all humans ever born on this planet!

So why haven’t you? Because light and truth doesn’t come shrinkwrapped, clearly labeled, and with a bow. Yes, sometimes there are attractive sources of further light and truth. But most times, it seems more like needing to drink from a car radiator when you are out of water than it does pulling a bottle of Fijian spring water out of an icebox. Truth is like a cashew nut—most people are allergic to the packaging, and only those who learn how to get around that can enjoy the prize.

In this case, it isn’t just the fact that the solution to your problems lies in accepting truth from other people—people who probably offend you. The bigger struggle is probably that it is very hard for you to recognize and believe that what they are saying is connected in any way to your problem. Recognition and belief are two different problems.

The problem of recognition is huge. It is so often the case that God sends the solution to the very problem someone is struggling with, and the recipient never even seems to notice, even if it is offered explicitly as the solution to their problem. We seem to have a strong disposition to disbelieve that our surroundings are connected to our problems, both in terms of noticing the causes and in noticing the solutions. For example, suppose you are struggling with money. Chances are that you know many people who are not. Have you spoken to any of them about what they would do in your situation? If not, how much effort have you expended in dealing with the consequences of your lack of money? How much effort have you expended complaining about your situation? You can substitute practically any problem for this one, and the fact remains that the vast majority of people do not make use of the resources they have to find solutions to the things that bother them. And this is, 100%, a problem of faith.

The problem of belief is huge. A willingness to believe must precede any test of a new principle. Another way of putting this is that you will never know the truth of anything you aren’t first willing to believe. You will never be limited in your progress from believing too much. Remember, the belief scale (dogmatic to open-minded) is independent from the discernment scale (undiscerning to discerning). You can never believe too much, but you can test too little.

Belief really comes down to this question: Are you hungry enough for a solution to your problem to consider anything and everything that has any hope of solving it? For most people, the devil they know (their problem) is preferable to the devil they don’t (a potential solution). A willingness to believe that there is something better available is called humility. The secret to acquiring massive amounts of truth is developing such a willingness to believe that you do not need to experience massive discomfort in order to hunger and thirst for better ways.

Humility is intricately connected to faith. Faith is a willingness to act on a putative truth. Humility empowers faith because it determines how many times you will try and how much you are willing to try. Some putative truths take only a little humility to be willing to test. If you were told that a $100 bill is in your left pocket, you’d probably check, even if you thought the chances were low. Some putative truths take a massive amount of humility to be willing to test. If you were told a $100 bill would will appear if you went into a public place and quacked like a duck as loud as you can, you probably would pass.

We all start out with massive humility and faith by virtue of being children. Why do children have so much of both? Because they are woefully ignorant of the world, and everything they do shows them this. They do not know what causes generate what effects, because they pay attention to surprises. They have to try to walk and fail perhaps a thousand times before they take their first step. And it is like that with everything. How are we different than children? We think we know everything—not because we are necessarily more successful in linking cause and effect—but because we have developed the ability to ignore our ignorance. We also have developed a strong unwillingness to keep trying when our initial tests fail.

It has been said that the successful don’t succeed more often than others, they try more often than others. They fail faster and more often than those who are less successful. The same holds true in seeking truth. If you recognize putative truths around you as potential solutions to your problems and believe enough to try them out, you will fail in your tests much more often than those who don’t. But you get to keep everything that proves true, and you will accumulate much more truth than those who don’t believe solutions to their problems exist, and don’t believe enough to try them out.

This process need not involve another person, but more often than not, it does. It typically requires someone else who has walked the way to help us see the path. It takes humility to believe that another person may hold the solution to your problem, and it takes faith to test the putative new truth. There will be many propositions that do not solve the problem, but you have to have belief to recognize a potential link to the problem and to test the solution.

It has been said that everyone you meet can teach you something. The pinnacle of humility is to both believe that everything you believe is incorrect or incomplete, and that everyone you meet can give you something better. Few reach this ideal, but it can be somewhat shocking to honestly evaluate where you stand on this continuum.

It is essential to cultivate the correct response to those God puts in our path who possess some piece of truth that we lack. God uses people to distribute truth. All who refuse to receive truth in this way permanently cut themselves off from higher light and truth. Having a correct notion of how you really react can help you in detecting and correcting your natural reaction to higher truth, giving you a better chance of detecting and accepting it.

People like to imagine that, were they to meet someone with more light and truth, they would immediately see the value in what they were teaching and would rejoice in the experience. Our imagined response to someone with greater truth is just that—imaginary. It isn’t realistic.

It is the tendency of every person to reject greater light. Normal people will react to people with greater truth by wishing they would just shut up. They wish they didn’t have more truth. They prefer praise to correction. They would rather have people with more truth be satisfied with them rather than reveal that they could be better. They love the fruits of greater truth, but hate the means of getting them. They love the bread that Jesus miraculously creates, but despise his wisdom that generated it, and how it collides with their perspectives. They are not willing to suffer for the truth, and they are proud.

Truth seekers will seek to do God’s will and will rejoice at anything that progresses their understanding of God’s will. They love the wisdom of Jesus more than the loaves it can miraculously produce, because their trust is in God’s love and knowledge, and because they appreciate the spiritual more than the carnal. They are willing to suffer for the truth, and they are humble.

It has been said that “all the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes.” (Proverbs 16:2) Perhaps because people also like to imagine that whatever they are doing is right, they assume that if they were to meet someone with much more light, that person’s message would reinforce their current beliefs (even though this has never ever been the case in scripture).

Were you to meet someone with more light and truth than you, their message would not be that all is well. Instead, they would instantly focus on the parts of your belief that most need upgrading, and you would hate every minute of it.

How do most people react to those with greater truth? Do they rejoice at the opportunity to gain further light and truth at a dramatic discount paid for by the suffering of the truth holder? Do they get excited to let go of false traditions and embrace more accurate realities? They don’t. They get angry. They reject the person, and sometimes they try to kill him.

There are three reactions to the presentation of further light and truth. The most likely are anger, envy, and enmity: anger that anyone would dare contradict your beliefs; envy that they know these things and you don’t; enmity in seeing this person as your enemy instead of someone who is loving you by attempting to help you when they know it will most likely make you hate them. Some few will pay lip service to the teaching, admitting it is right, but only giving an obligatory response driven by a sense of duty. It is rare and unlikely that anyone will respond ideally, delighting at the teaching, absorbing it, and owning it. This response requires greater trust in God than trust in self. It comes when you genuinely believe that God loves you and that he knows everything. This belief will cause the holder to also believe that anything they believe is incorrect or incomplete, and that any new truth will lead to a far better experience than they previously had.

Joshua, Elisha, John, and few others have had a chance to really get to know someone who was vastly closer to the Father than they were. Why was it only a few? While it is obvious that men like Moses, Elijah, and the Son of God are few, what is less clear is why the thousands of other people that could have known them well did not. Because normal people hate men of God. They do not recognize what they believe as good. They do not see the light in these people, and they write them off as evil. This is because the vast majority of people never learn how to evaluate truth. Instead of judging it by its works, and thereby learning to recognize what generated those works as good, they focus only on how it compares to what they already know. They are damned by the literal definition of the word—eternally limited to the light they already have. These people vastly underestimate how much better God is than they are, and in doing so completely miss the obvious signs provided them of the divine source of what they see. This is why men of God end up living in caves rather than palaces. This is why their followers are few. This is why they are sawn in half and crucified upside down.

You think you would recognize someone who had vastly more light than you do. You wouldn’t. You think you would want to spend as much time as possible with such a person. You wouldn’t. You think you’d savor the drops of wisdom that would come from them like candy. You wouldn’t.

If you were like the vast majority of people, what would you do? You would assume that you knew about as much as they did, already, in spite of the vast differences in your lives. You would assume that they teach everything they know. You would assume what little you observe in them to be all there is to observe. You would fill in all the blanks in what you see with your own qualities, projecting upon them all of your own sins, assuming that the reason they do what they do is the same reason you would do what they do. You would find what they say to be incredibly offensive, because it would show you more clearly than you had ever supposed how you are less holy than you thought and how much of your suffering is in fact your own fault. Instead of attempting to enter into open-minded discussion with this person, to probe the depths of your and their understanding with the assumption that, either way, you will learn something, you will oversimplify their position and write them off in an attempt to shut them up. Then, when they quickly overcome you with reason, you will avoid any other interaction. You would avoid this person like the plague, and you would tear apart their reputation every chance you have. Depending on how much light they have compared to you, your hatred of them may be so extreme that you would try to kill them.

What is your motive in searching for truth? Your motive will dictate your reaction to greater light and truth.

Some use their beliefs as a way to feel superior to others. They respond with envy to those who have greater light and truth than they do. They will be cut off from more light until they realize that without the light, they are nothing.

Some use their beliefs as a way to cover their known inadequacies. They respond with deflection and defensiveness to those who have greater light and truth. They will be cut off from more light until they realize that light is always more valuable than darkness.

Some use their beliefs as false security to defend them from change. They respond with anger and emotion to those who have greater light and truth. They will be cut off from more light until they realize that the only sure foundation is truth, and truth is never final: “truth abideth and hath no end.” (D&C 88:66)

Your interactions with truth will try your foundation to see what it is built of: “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)

If your motives are sandy, they will collapse in the storm. If your motives are sandy, they will collapse in the storm. If they are built on the one and only rock, they will endure and in fact cause you to rejoice at any chance to gain further light and truth.

Rather than be offended by the idea that some people possess more light and truth than you do, you should rejoice and thank God. It means you will have the chance to receive the fruits of work orders of magnitude beyond what you were willing to do.

The Lord said “For of him unto whom much is given much is required.” (D&C 82:3) Those who possess more light and truth are expected to do more with it than those who have less. There are many who will find themselves in interactions with others where they possess more light and truth on some subject. If you truly believe that everyone is the same, why would you bother exerting the effort—let alone enduring the suffering that almost always accompanies such effort—in trying to help that other person adopt some of the light and truth you have acquired?

Paul taught.

In this passage, Paul highlights that while God is the source of truth, because of our limited awareness, we typically require a third party to help catalyze our recognition of further light and truth.

All truth comes from God. While it is more commonly the case that the light inside of us teaches us in response to the teaching of others, we can also obtain light and truth directly from him.

An analogy will help illustrate the relationship between finding truth directly from God and finding truth with the help of another person. When you look at the sun with your naked eye, you see an orb of light so intense that you can’t make out an exact shape or any details. You can’t look for very long because of the pain it induces. Because you can’t stare at the sun, you have to sense it indirectly: through ambient light, through heat that you feel on your skin, and through its effects on other objects. The sun actually has a tremendous amount of detail to it. We can't see it with our eyes because there is so much light flowing from it that it overloads our sight. In order to see it, you have to filter out a great deal of the light coming from it. Light bearers act like a wavelength filter through which we can see previously unbearable details of the sun. It is not a complete picture, but it is a marked advancement over what we previously had.

God's light and truth flows in and through all things, even those things that do not recognize him. The light shines at full blast, but we don’t comprehend or perceive it. What lies outside of our awareness is necessarily unknown to us. Those who have a greater awareness can help us obtain the same in ways that are much faster and forgiving than our direct attempts. The role of light bearers is to reduce God’s glory to something much easier to digest—a small chunk—and distribute it to the masses, in hopes that they can develop the capacity to recognize, comprehend, and endure God's glory directly.

While obtaining light directly from God is ideal, it is also the most difficult way. There are two benefits to obtaining truth from others. First, it is faster. Second, it is more forgiving.

The intercession of others makes truth available to you beyond what your own heed and diligence merits. God went through a lot of effort to make sure that there were noble and great ones sent to earth in order to make truth available beyond what an individual could get on their own (see, for example, Alma 13). An analogy is found in the relationship between established trees and new trees. The new trees have shallow roots, and the rain ensures that nutrients are washed deep into the soil. The established trees help the new trees grow to their stature by pulling the deep nutrients up from the earth and distributing them on the topsoil through shedding their leaves. This is how those with greater light and truth make these things available to those with less light and truth. People who possess more light and truth than most are rare but can provide access to light and truth that would take most people many lifetimes to acquire.

The pattern throughout scripture is that a human obtains light and truth, then shares it with others. For example, the apostle John taught others what he had learned from the Lord directly, giving a reason for them to believe it could be true: “We know this is true, because it was told by someone who saw it happen. Now you can have faith too.” (John 19:35, CEV)

The Lord uses those with greater light to help those with less light, because without them, those with less light would not have the means to obtain sufficient information to progress.

Every step along our truth progression is like a ladder. The rungs of the ladder are composed of ever-increasing light. Some of these rungs come through people who possess the light we lack. You never know if the people you meet every day might be the source of the next packet of light in your progression. When you come across someone who might have more light, you investigate what they do and why they do it. You sift through what they have to offer, and test the things that pass the bar of what might be true. You assimilate what passes your tests, and then you move on. Every time you have sifted through a person’s light, and applied all they have to offer, you can return to God and say, “Lord, I have been true and faithful to everything you have given me. Give me further light and knowledge.” Then, he will send you someone else.

As a truth seeker, you are like a gold miner. You might discover a very rich seam of gold on your own in a virgin landscape. Odds are that you will not be as successful as those who have gone before you and have discovered, mined, and sorted tons of gold. The difference between light and gold is that light does not diminish with sharing. Imagine two people mining gold. They can’t share their gold without giving it away. Light and truth is also mined, but sharing it does not diminish it. Now, imagine one person, through their prolonged obedience to God and well-developed desire, has the equivalent of modern machinery in their mining operation, while you have the equivalent of a pick axe.

By paying attention to the light and truth obtained by that other person, you can gain all the benefits of having built up a modern operation without having expended any of the time and capital they required to get there. By perceiving the light in others, you can launch ahead in light and truth far beyond what you could on your own in the same amount of time. By finding human sources of light, one can acquire, evaluate, and integrate several lifetime's worth of light in much less than a lifetime.

Here we must make a note to say that salvation is not as easy as finding and mining light bearers. While the existence of those with greater light and truth is a tremendous blessing, it is a situation that must be navigated with care. It is rare that anyone interacts appropriately with this resource. When it comes to obtaining light and truth through others, we tend to do one of two things: we either set this person up as a guru, or we reject them out of hand.

Your objective is not to fixate on them, but to investigate and test their model. Acquire what is valid, and find the cracks in what is not. Eventually, you will rise to their level, and if you continue to hunger and thirst after more truth, you will overtake them, as the quantity of light that you obtain is determined by your “heed and diligence,” or effort in acquiring and assimilating it.

What does it mean to surpass them? You will have answers to questions they do not know the answers to, and you will have stronger answers than they do (answers that stand up to stronger criticism). These people are like landmarks. On a flat plane, you can only see so far. But you can see landmarks closer to you that you imagine are in line with your ultimate goal. As you walk towards those landmarks, you might be able to figure a more accurate bearing to your ultimate goal.

Light bearers are all around you to a greater extent than any other time in the history of the world thanks to modern technology. The internet gives us access to the entire population of holy men on the earth just as soon as we are ready to search for and hear them. What are you doing with this advantage? Are you screening more putative truth and obtaining more tested truth than prior generations? How much time and effort do you spend reading books and watching videos from great (whether popular or not) minds, testing their principles against what the Spirit tells you? Remember that when much is given, much is expected. You should ask yourself why God has made it easier for our generation than any previous generation to obtain more light, and ask what he expects you to do with it.

Here is a law of human nature: People project their motives onto everyone else around them, whether they are evil or not. In a parable, Jesus spoke the cryptic phrase: “Is thine eye evil, because I am good?” (Matthew 20:15) What he was referring to was the fact that people assume that the actions of others are motivated by the same motives by which they are actuated. A dishonest person assumes everyone is dishonest with them. A liar assumes everyone else is lying. A drunk assumes that everyone who drinks does so because they are addicted. A person who lusts after others assumes everyone else does, too. A person who has tried but failed to be selfless assumes anyone who claims to be selfless is lying. A person who thinks they are pious will venomously attack a person who demonstrates objectively greater piety. Those who are good, on the other hand, will project their good motives onto others. They will consistently be taken advantage of and negatively surprised by the evil in the hearts of men, when their assumptions prove poor. Inspecting your assumptions of the motives of others is one of the best ways to see what we typically can’t see about ourselves.

This brings to mind the story of a father and his confused son. A father notices his two-year-old son has begun tearing up books when left unattended. The father reprimands the child with increasing force with each repetition of the book ripping commensurate with the son’s presumed understanding that it is wrong to tear up books. One evening, as the father is concluding his first venture into a new book, he searches for some piece of paper to mark his place. Seeing a scrap, he reaches for it and tears a section off. The son runs over to the father, wide eyed, and says “Daddy broke it! Book!” In the son’s eyes, the father has just broken his own commandment not to rip up books. The father does not feel in the least bit hypocritical, knowing that the scrap piece of paper was already headed for the trash bin, and that it was not related to the bound papers making up the book. Considering it a simple thing to understand, he tries to explain it to his son. “This is just a piece of paper. Daddy didn’t break the book.” “Daddy naughty! Book broke!” No matter what the father tries, the son just doesn’t understand. Whether it is caused by a limited capacity to understand or simply a lack of teaching is irrelevant. The son simply cannot not see his father’s righteous actions as anything but naughty.

Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he taught that we need to remove the beam in our eye before removing the speck in another’s eye. It is interesting that he used the word “eye,” which means awareness. Many times, what we most hate in another is actually what it makes us see in ourselves.

Our tendency to project our awareness onto others is one reason why we should exercise extreme caution when we judge others.

Isaiah described that the Messiah would have “no beauty that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2) He would be “despised” and without esteem (see Isaiah 53:3). He would be considered “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:4)

During his mortal ministry, the Lord Jesus received criticism from the Pharisees because he and his disciples did not fast. The Pharisees expected him to follow their understanding of what God expected, but the Lord was following a higher set of instructions. Similarly, he lamented how the Pharisees criticized John for not drinking, and Jesus for drinking (see Matthew 11:18-19).

One such example of this is found when the Pharisees pointed out to Jesus that his disciples were breaking the law of Moses by eating the wheat as they walked through the field on the Sabbath. The Lord provided a higher order set of truth.

Note the Lord’s comment: “if ye had known what this meaneth...ye would not have condemned the guiltless.” It is too easy for us to condemn those who may know more than we do.

While no one will have as much light as the Lord does, the pattern still holds at lesser levels of light.

It is quite dangerous to criticize other people. Since it isn’t easy to tell who has more light than you on a topic, you should always approach any difference in viewpoint carefully. In seeking to correct, you may actually find someone who knows more about something than you!

Because truth is many-dimensional, it is difficult if not impossible to produce an absolute ranking of people in terms of light and truth (though God can and does do this, see Abraham 3:19). For a simple example, consider that one person might be less patient than you, but you might be more willing to give to the poor. It turns out that where someone is in terms of truth is a complicated question, because that progress would need to be measured across every dimension. Luckily, we need not worry about that because our concern is in identifying specific truths along a specific dimension to recognize either an opportunity to impart to others, or acquire for ourselves, something more advanced.

Light and truth are all around us. Why, then, is it so rare to find someone who possesses a great deal of it?

There are so few people with advanced light and truth because the people who are willing to exert the astronomical effort required to obtain advanced light and truth are rare. Most people settle for the light and truth they casually encounter. This is like collecting only the gold that you happen to find in large nuggets laying on the surface as you walk by on your way to work. Like gold ore, the vast majority of truth is not found lying on the surface in big nuggets, but is found distributed in hard to reach places in small quantities.

How rare is gold? It currently takes up to 100 tons of rock to mine one ounce of gold. That is hard to visualize. To put this into perspective, at this ratio, you would have to dig out enough rock to fill a very large living room floor to ceiling to get a coin roughly the volume of two quarters. Truth is also rare, strictly defined as “not found in dense abundance.” Truth may be all around us, but it requires extraction and processing. Like gold ore, it is encased in and distributed among ideas of far less worth.

Like the effort to acquire gold, the effort required to acquire truth increases exponentially compared to the amount you acquire. The exponential curve looks somewhat like the letter J. It takes much more effort to obtain a little more truth.

With gold mining, there comes a point where the cost to extract the metal exceeds the value of the metal extracted. The holes are too deep and the quantity of gold per ton of rock too low to justify the cost. With light and truth, the only limit is a person's willingness to suffer for others, because the value of light and truth is what you can give to another person. It is one's faith in the eternal worth of a soul’s unlimited potential for progression that determines how deep the mining will go, and what level of suffering is to be endured. Why do so few have great quantities of light? Because so few have true unconditional love for mankind, and because unlimited trust in God is so rare.

To sum up, people who possess vast amounts of light and truth are as rare as the amount of faith required to exert the enormous amount of effort and suffering required to obtain those vast amounts of light and truth. How rare are these people? There is no way of telling. But, if the proportion of gold to non-gold in the earth’s crust is the same as spiritually-advanced people to normal people, there would be about seven of them on the earth today.

Is this an absurd estimate? A spiritually-advanced person would not be living in obscurity, but would be under an incredible weight to do all they could to share their light and truth with all the people they could. Given the internet and other modern conveyances of information, these people would surely be producing materials that would be well-known. How many people do you know who are demonstrating all the fruits of the gospel of Christ and publicly revealing truths that have never been revealed since the foundation of the world? We can also analyze the scriptures for examples of the likelihood of spiritually-advanced people. Although technological limitations made it more difficult to spread information, we see people like Paul and Nephi who were able to preach the gospel face-to-face in every known land within much less than a lifetime. If people like this were teaching, the odds of their teachings making it into scripture are relatively high. And, out of the billions of people who have lived since Adam, how many have their teachings or stories recorded in scripture?

People with vast amounts of truth exist, but they are very rare. These people are reconciled to everything they have, and continue in that path for decades.

And now it came to pass that according to our record, and we know our record to be true, for behold, it was a just man who did keep the record—for he truly did many miracles in the name of Jesus; and there was not any man who could do a miracle in the name of Jesus save he were cleansed every whit from his iniquity— (3 Nephi 8:1)

The purpose of these truth bearers is not to be a light in the place of God. Instead, it is to provide you with more light and truth than you have merited by your efforts, through their suffering and condescension, in hopes that you will repent and take up the duty of mining truth directly from God. Also, they can rocket you ahead in the amount of awareness you have, since life provides us only with a finite amount of time.

Chapter 16: Evaluating Truth in Others

The Lord lamented that “this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted.” (Matthew 13:15) This was not merely the condition of especially wicked people. The Lord’s light was and is so advanced that very few did or do understand it. In most cases, it requires repeated attempts of teaching by lesser qualified intermediaries before you get it. The Lord’s description here probably applies to you just as well as it did the Pharisees. If you don’t already possess a certain quantum of truth, it is very unlikely that you will recognize it as true upon being exposed to it. Instead, like a scientist who lacks the instrumentation to observe a property directly, you will have to rely upon secondary evidence, what the scriptures describe as the fruits of the principle.

The Lord said.

What does “good fruit” mean? Good means that which improves or benefits. The outcomes in a person’s life are determined by the light that the person lives according to. Outcomes here is not limited to a narrow interpretation.

“Good fruit” does not mean temporal prosperity. There are countless examples of righteous men from history who went through severe adversity, the chiefest of them the Lord himself. It is not in the absence of adversity that truth is manifest, but the endurance of godly character through it. When that begins to crack, when you see the limits of someone’s endurance, you will discover limits to their truth. God dwells in everlasting burnings, where he endures every bit of reality pertaining to our existence. Jesus corrected his disciples’ error in supposing a certain man’s physical handicap resulted from sin (see John 9:2-3). He said that the man’s blindness was actually a blessing so that “the works of God should be made manifest in him.” (John 9:2-3) When we judge, we ought to judge righteous judgment, or judgment according to God’s understanding, and not according to our sight, or man’s understanding: “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” (John 7:24)

Trees that bear evil fruit are hewn down and cast into the fire. While this almost certainly refers to the fires of hell, remember that just as the outcomes of righteousness do not wait until after death to manifest, neither do the outcomes of wickedness. Good fruit implies the capability to endure the vicissitudes of life—not to avoid them, as in the case of the righteous blind man, but to endure them.

Higher truth can withstand greater tribulation. Light and truth is, at its root, the mechanism by which God makes us capable of overcoming the things of this world. The more suffering a person can bear while maintaining Christ-like poise, the more truth they have. Poise can be deceptive when it is granted by ignorance. A fool can be very calm in the midst of a storm, because he has no reckoning of the storm.

Bearers of truth are humble. They truly believe that everything they know is incorrect or incomplete, and therefore are least likely to dismiss something out of hand.

Bearers of truth tend to overcome obstacles. They are more prepared for and resilient to future events because they have an expanded awareness. Bearers of truth do things differently. They don’t take people’s word for it. They think and act according to what they have determined is true, not what the crowd believes is true.

Bearers of truth do not have much respect for tradition. They test things. They adopt things most people won’t consider. Because of this, they are frequently ostracized from social groups, churches, and even workplaces.

While all of these qualities will manifest in someone who possesses further light and truth, none of them guarantee it. Those who pass these tests are worth investigating, but everything they present as putative truth must still be tested.

It may seem tempting to oversimplify the testing process. We live in a generation where people are unwilling to listen to an argument that is longer than a soundbite. When you limit a message to a certain level of simplicity, you cut yourself off from anything more substantial. You would not expect anyone to convey a college course in one sitting or stream a movie in five minutes. You should assume that significant ideas will require significant time to investigate. You can’t shortcut the process by substituting your feelings for your rational process—you will almost always feel bad about any corrective instruction; this is a well-known phenomenon called cognitive dissonance. You can’t shortcut the process by offering a low information prayer to God—he expects you to lay a foundation of informed reason using the rational faculties he has given you before crowning them with revelation.

While the reward for correctly mining truth from others is great, the risk is also high. You can reject bearers of truth, and you can accept frauds.

The existence of human messengers does not imply that all who claim to have a message from God actually do. There are people who are actuated by the devil, but claim to be inspired from God (see Alma 30:53). There are people who are con artists (short for convincing artists), who personally benefit from manipulating people to do as they say. There are people who are sincere, but of limited understanding, whose zeal exceeds their knowledge (see Romans 10:2). An apt example of this is Apollos, who went around preaching and teaching the baptism of John. He wasn’t preaching about Jesus only because he hadn’t yet heard of him (see Acts 18:24-26).

You won’t know which type of person you are dealing with until you test what they are saying. People with legitimate light and truth will be the minority.

There is a difference between a deceived prophet and a false prophet. Both exist. A false prophet never came from God. A false prophet is a total phony. False prophets are liars, and they know they are liars. A deceived prophet is different. A deceived prophet may have accessed the heavens. He may have had many interactions with God. He may have worked true, mighty wonders from heaven. Yet, none of these things prevents a man from teaching false doctrine, from being mistaken, or from teaching on a topic beyond his understanding. Prophets only know what God has shown them, and no prophet has seen everything. Like anyone else, prophets must synthesize what God has shown them with their understanding of everything else. Everything else could come from their understanding of the scriptures, studies of human behavior, cultural biases, and what they have heard from others.

Furthermore, all men are capable of possessing lesser truth. For example, consider John the Baptist. He preached a higher degree of truth than the Jews, but a lower degree of truth than Christ. Christ's teachings would not have been new or radical if they were simply the same things as John preached. They were not. Some followers of John recognized that Jesus had higher truth, and started listening to Jesus instead of John. Many did not. While post-Jesus followers of John (such as the disciples Paul encountered baptizing with the baptism of John) were not preaching false doctrine, they were certainly preaching doctrine of lesser light than the followers of Jesus (see Acts 19). Those who cling to lower light when shown higher light are akin to men who opt to eat stale, moldy bread when hot, fresh bread is offered to them.

This works the other way as well. Truth can come from anywhere, including from people who have previously done things that are clearly bad. The high priest who sentenced Jesus to death also gave a true prophecy.

Rejecting a principle for where it came from is perhaps the greatest form of unbelief. Most people mistakenly think they are testing a principle when in fact they are merely testing where it came from. The truthfulness of a principle has nothing to do with where it came from. It is by their fruits that ye shall know them. Not the trunk of the tree.

The source of a message does not impact its truthfulness.

No man is perfect. Given that truth, the search for deeper understanding of gospel principles will always include uncovering the mistakes, misconceptions, and limitations of understanding in others. This is completely natural given the process of seeking for truth. As referenced in another chapter, consider the analogy of a city at night. With various sources of light at different intensities, the truth seeker has an ever-changing snapshot of all truth currently understood by them. Some parts of this snapshot are more certain than others. For an outsider to see another’s viewpoint that is not in concordance with his own, then, is the norm and not the exception. Mistakes are simply a side effect of the process, just as dross is a byproduct of deriving metal from ore. The dross of others’ mistakes is not what truth-seekers are after. They will simply cast it aside in their search for the ore of personal improvement.

Past performance is not a validator of truth. A person can be totally right in the past, and totally wrong in the present, or vice versa. Every message must be independently evaluated: “...test everything; hold fast what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21) One part of a sermon can be correct, even if another is not.

God makes use of vessels to do his work. Sometimes these are righteous vessels (like Isaiah), and sometimes these are wicked vessels (like Nebuchadnezzar). Most times, however, they are a little righteous and a little wicked (like Gideon, who did some things right and some things wrong). The righteousness of a man does not indicate that anything he says is true. The Bible is full of examples of true messages from God being delivered by men who were not worthy of emulation. On the other hand, the wickedness of a man does not indicate that a particular belief he has is not from God. The high priest who killed Jesus delivered a true prophecy (see John 11:49-51)!

The Lord Jesus was and is the perfect conduit of truth. Everything he teaches provides increased light and truth for everyone he teaches. This is an exceptional position. The amount of light and truth you possess will determine the probability of encountering more in someone else. Those with a normal amount—that is, very little—have a good chance of learning something from everyone they meet. Even in this case, this doesn’t mean that everything others believe represents incremental truth to you. Almost everyone you encounter will possess a mix of beliefs that represent increases in truth for you and beliefs that are lower than the truth you already possess. Some few people you encounter—and the more truth you have, the fewer they will be—will possess more truth than you on all or almost all subjects.

When we encounter anyone who has more light and truth than we do, our objective is to obtain all they have, become as close to God as they are, and then go find more light and truth elsewhere.

Unfortunately, this rarely happens. Most people are incredibly naive and will fall for any clown claiming spiritual experiences. Others are more discerning, but make a man their connection to God when they have validated some of his experiences and/or teachings. This latter case is common in the Bible, where on various occasions men would attach themselves to some prophet. These “schools of the prophets” are interesting. Can you recall the name of even one member of them, or one work they did? You can't, despite the fact that you can name the prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc. You see, content with making a man their idol, these people never ascended to connecting directly to God. Exceptions include Joshua, who created his own connection with God independent of Moses, and Elisha, who did the same independent of Elijah.

Please do not be so simple and foolish as to believe a man's message is correct just because he has had experiences with God. He could be a liar. He could be wrong. He could be clinging to lower truth. He could even be sent from God to lie to you. We ought to focus on the Lord Jesus, and scrutinize what we hear from men no matter what they have revealed or how beneficial it has been in the past.

Some people have had authentic experiences in the past, but have lost that light to the point where they cannot reproduce equal experiences in themselves, let alone instruct others on how to do so. This happens more frequently than I think people realize. If God visited you years ago, and never since, you really ought to humble yourself to the dust and ask him why. Spiritual experiences are meant to happen more frequently over time as one draws closer to God, not less frequently.

Do not assume that every spiritual experience comes from God. We seem to forget that Satan—the master counterfeiter—is always chomping at the bit to derail people. He is especially interested in derailing those who have been most successful in obtaining God. God only allows him to deceive to the degree that a person has the capacity to detect and withstand his deception. What this means is that those who have experienced the most are also the most likely to be deceived, because they are subjected to the greatest deceptive tactics.

Of particular vulnerability are those that haven't had an experience with God in a long time. Perhaps they slip into sin, or idleness, or pride, and have offended God but are unaware. Perhaps they are aware, but want both the fleeting pleasure of their sin and the peace that comes from a relationship with God. Of course, those can't co-exist. In any case, those more concerned with obtaining spiritual experiences than obtaining the reconciliation with God that generates them will find Satan all too willing to answer their pleas for spiritual experiences without the prerequisite repentance.

Walking the straight and narrow is a continuous experience. You have to consistently unlearn what you thought you knew and walk away from others who you thought were interested in knowing God the same way you were. Having one or many spiritual encounters in the past means nothing about your present standing with God. Like a fish, the only disciple that stays still is a dead one.

Always remember that a person can convey both truth and falsehood. Satan himself sometimes teaches truth in spite of it being surrounded by falsehood. When he told Adam and Eve that eating the fruit of knowledge would not kill them, which was a lie, he also told them it would give them understanding of good and evil, which was true. Men can likewise teach both true things and false things. A man's having taught truth in the past does not certify that whatever he teaches in the future will be true, and a man's having taught falsehood in the past does not certify that whatever he teaches in the future will be false.

Assuming one of worldly renown or one with spiritual experiences is right is trusting in the arm of the flesh.

Human beings love gurus. After all, it is much easier to decide whether a person is a so-called true messenger—a single, one-time decision—than it is to evaluate each teaching they offer independent from past experience.

Mortality is a dangerous place. A principle purpose of our being here is to learn to discern between good and evil. If it were as simple as identifying a person to whom we can attach ourselves to be saved, many more people would be saved. Instead, we are adrift and constantly bump up against putative truth. Most of it will be false, some of it will be true.

Most messengers will be completely false, and some few only a little false. There are plenty of examples of people who had one or two good ideas, or good ideas for a time, then veered off the rails.

When we believe that men's authority is required to save us, we set up certain individuals with dominion over us. We trust that whatever they tell us is God's word, and whatever they tell us to do is God's will. They become the source of truth for us. This is abominable idolatry. No matter what stature the idols have achieved with God, it can never bring you more than the glory of angels in the best case. In the worst case, it will lead you straight to hell.

Don’t outsource your relationship with God. It doesn't work like that. Salvation can only come through your personal relationship with God. You don't have the option of being saved in some other way. You can’t expect the awareness of others to translate into your knowledge. No matter what another person does, you still have to acquire light and truth for yourself in order to be saved.

Humility requires a belief that others might have something to teach you. Whenever you dismiss someone out of hand, it is an evidence of your pride. Consider Moses, who in spite of dwelling in heaven for 40 days and parting the sea, humbly accepted advice from his father in law—who had had none of these experiences as far as we know (see Exodus 18:24). If salvation is a function of knowledge (and it is), and if correction from others is the primary mechanism for conveying light and truth (and it is), then how we respond to criticism is the key upon which salvation hinges.

There is no better example of a messenger who was rejected out of hand than Jesus. The Lord Jesus was the holiest man to ever walk the earth. He worked constant, obvious miracles. He unlocked mysteries and preached great wisdom. You would think that those who knew him best would most clearly recognize his divinity. They didn’t.

When he preached in his hometown, the people responded with derision, even while acknowledging his abnormal wisdom and miracles.

His own siblings rejected him—at least initially.

You would think that strangers who knew him only because his miracles and teachings brought him fame would recognize these abnormal acts as tokens of truth. They didn’t.

After he had fed 5,000 with miraculously-produced bread, the people murmured because he said he came from heaven.

These people had just eaten the bread that Jesus had produced miraculously, and still their first reaction to his claim of being from heaven was to doubt and get angry.

Interaction with a person with more light and truth than you will increase your awareness, revealing what was previously undistinguished in you. Because the natural man is an enemy to God, more often than not what they reveal in you is evil of which you were not previously aware. The Lord said: “The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.” (John 7:7) A person whose eye is single to the glory of God will rejoice when someone corrects them. Most people, however, will recoil from light. The natural reaction to truth is anger. The devil makes you angry against that which is good (see 2 Nephi 28:20). The Lord taught about this interaction in clear terms.

All of this serves as a strong caution. Our inclination is to recoil from greater light and truth, and to misjudge those who carry it to us.

Why do you think God had holy men wear weird clothes (or no clothes!), live in caves, and spend their time making strange object lesson signs (e.g. lying on their side for more than a year, publicly cooking their food on a fire made of feces, marrying a known prostitute, etc.)? Was it perhaps to make it blatantly obvious that because his ways are higher than our ways (see Isaiah 55:8-9), we should expect that these people’s ways would seem strange to us, instead of writing off what they teach when they are?

Well did Isaiah write: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20) He correctly predicted that the Lord would be “despised and rejected of men” (Isaiah 53:3) and that “he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 52:2) If the greatest of all is despicable and without beauty to the natural man, how can we expect that lesser emissaries of truth will be desirable in any way?

Many people that you meet will have something to teach you. The key question is not whether someone has a different quantity of light and truth than you—everyone will. The questions are: 1) in what area and 2) which truth is higher? It is quite easy to sense a disparity in light and truth between yourself and another. However, it is nearly impossible to tell who is the more advanced until you test the new putative truth.

You test a message by experimenting upon it. If you live it and improve, it is right. If you live it and do not improve, it is false. What a true messenger offers is the opportunity to experience what they claim to have experienced. If you have done what they have taught and not received what they have claimed to receive, one or both of you is a liar. Either you have not done what they have done, they have not experienced what they claim, or both. Anyone who follows a man is a fool. Anyone who follows a fool they have disproven through their lack of experiences is not only a fool, but a liar.

Anyone claiming experiences with God ought to be able to instruct others on how to obtain those same experiences. If they are unable to bring others who apply their ideas to the same experiences they claim, you can set them down as imposters. Their experiences either never happened, came from the devil, or happened long ago and they have since lost that light and replaced it with darkness through sin.

An ideal messenger of God will make himself redundant by successfully bringing up those who hear him to the point where they equal or surpass him in experiences with God, as Jethro did with Moses. Conversely, if we consider a man as the object of evaluation, instead of considering each message separately, we limit ourselves to the state obtained by that man. Unless that man is Jesus Christ, our decision will result in severe limitation on our part.

All light and truth are available to all people, but some people, through their heed and diligence, are much more effective at acquiring it than others. God uses these people to make further light and truth available to everyone else. Even those who are zealous in their obedience to God can require truth from other people in order to reach the next level of light and truth. Though Paul was zealously faithful to the light and truth he had inherited as a Pharisee, he rejected the Christian message from Jesus’ disciples. As part of his path forward, he was required to visit one of the preachers he had previously rejected to obtain a miraculous healing. He had previously ignored evidence of the higher truth possessed by the Christians, and had God not intervened with an unusual miracle, he would have permanently cut himself off from considerable progress towards God.

As we see in scriptural examples, the common response to people who possess greater light and truth is negative. For example, Paul was surrounded by Christians who were demonstrating powerful gifts from God accompanying their heretical teachings of the Lord Jesus. Instead of investigating it, he actively persecuted them.

We are accountable for all truth, from all people. There will be far more people who suppose they have greater light and truth than those who actually do. All putative truth must be tested. All new truth will be different, although all different ideas are not necessarily true. One can comprehend truths that lie below their understanding, but they cannot tell out of hand whether putative truths higher than they possess are true or not.

When we encounter anyone who has more light and truth than we do, our objective is to obtain all they have, become as close to God as they are, and then go find more light and truth elsewhere. When you encounter someone who possibly has more light and truth than you have, you should investigate it further. What you will probably do, though, is persecute, ignore, or reject that person. That which is different should never be dismissed out of hand.

Whenever God delivers his word, directly or through another person, those who reject that message will be cut off from the Lord until and unless they humble themselves and repent. This is why Nephi was told “Inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy words they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And behold, they were cut off from his presence.” (2 Nephi 5:20) This is equally as true for anyone who shares with you any truth that is beyond what you possess.

Oh, how important it is to obtain and heed God's word, whatever the source. All who hear the word of God from any source and on any topic ought to heed the warning of the unlikely prophet, Samuel the Lamanite.

Chapter 17: Proverbs 4

1 Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding. 2 For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law. 3 For I was my father’s son, tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. 4 He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live. 5 Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. 6 Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. 7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. 8 Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. 9 She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee. 10 Hear, O my son, and receive my sayings; and the years of thy life shall be many. 11 I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths. 12 When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble. 13 Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life. 14 Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. 15 Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away. 16 For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall. 17 For they eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence. 18 But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. 19 The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble. 20 My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. 21 Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. 22 For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. 23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. 24 Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee. 25 Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. 26 Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. 27 Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil. (Proverbs 4)

Part Three: Disseminating Truth

Chapter 18: What Happens When Leaders Don’t Lead

Something strange happens when you put a group of people—any group of people—into a situation where their production can be measured. It really doesn't matter what is produced—mining coal, making cars, making money—you will find that the vast majority produce very little, some few produce a lot, and some outliers produce more than all the others combined. This behavior is described by the Pareto distribution.

The Pareto distribution is described by the Lord. For example, when he gave the parable of the sower, he explained how most don’t bear fruit, some bear thirty times the planted seed, some sixty, and some one hundred.

The Pareto distribution says, in effect, that 80% of production comes from 20% of people. The details are even more extreme. The top 1% of producers tend to produce around 34% of what is produced! Again, this pattern holds true anywhere human production is measured. It holds true as much in spiritual matters as it does temporal matters.

While production in this world is determined by a sophisticated cluster of factors, many of which are outside of an individual's control, spiritual intelligence is fully within the control of an able-minded individual.

How much we produce spiritually is determined by two things and two things only: how well we obey what God has revealed to us and how much effort we impart in seeking him (see Alma 12:9).

The scriptures are plain when it comes to these ideas. For example, Alma 13 plainly states that we are all given equal opportunity to grow spiritually, and any differences are solely due to obedience and effort.

God provides an equal opportunity to all people, but many do not accept his invitation at all, and very few accept it completely, “For many are called, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14) Indeed, “small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:14 NIV)

It is incredibly incorrect to think of light and truth as something that is set at birth, like one’s height or eye color. It just isn’t so. Rather than a static characteristic, your light and truth is more like how much money you have. It is about what you obtain, not what you start with.

In the parable of the talents, the Lord describes how and why it is that to those who have, he will give more (see Matthew 25). In the parable, two men are given more above what they already have because of their efforts to earn interest on what they have. By growing what they already have through their efforts, they earn the extra blessing and approbation of their master.

In the parable, their initial increase does not come from the master, who is away on business. It comes from the servant’s independent initiative. So where do they get it from?

They get it from other people, namely those who have it to give. God will give direct revelation to anyone who seeks it, but you can't completely control this through your own behavior. You can't force God to reveal something to you. However, you can seek light and truth that is already around you.

Our access to this light is limited only by our initiative. It is everywhere, just waiting for us to dig it out. We ought to assume that every person we meet might know something more than we do on some topic.

The difference between what we learn directly from God and what we learn through others is like the difference between gold nuggets lying on the surface of the earth, and flecks of gold dust embedded in tons of rock. Gold nuggets exist, but they are extremely rare. But you can mine rock as long as you have the resources to do so.

To mine gold you need to use the gold you already have to buy equipment, you need to expend the effort to dig it out of the ground, and you need to sort the gold from the much more abundant dross.

To mine truth, you need obedience to what you have already been shown, effort to seek out higher truth, and a willingness to test what you find.

Some exercise a great desire for truth. They end up on the far right of the Pareto distribution of spiritual intelligence; they are far more spiritually intelligent than others. Applying ratios from measurable forms of human production, it stands to reason that 80% of the light resides within 20% of the people, and that the top 1% produce 34% of the light. In the scriptures, these are called the “noble and great ones”.

What makes them noble and great? As quoted previously in Alma 13, it is merely that they exercised greater effort in obtaining light and truth and obedience to what they obtained than their fellows. This blessing is available to all, but not all desire it.

Why did God send the “noble and great ones” here? Why was it necessary for them to be here in order for the rest of the spirits to be proved to see if they would “do all things whatsoever that God shall command them?”

These people are vital to holding creation together. Just as the first world would fall apart without the production of the top 20% of producers, leaving a desolation for the remaining 80%, the spiritual top 20%: (1) Emit the light and truth necessary to stay the entropy that would otherwise destroy this world in a literal, physical sense; and (2) Churn out light and truth for the “residue of men,” just like large trees churn nutrients to the surface via their dropped leaves for the benefit of shallow-root plants.

And by so doing, the Lord God prepareth the way that the residue of men may have faith in Christ, that the Holy Ghost may have place in their hearts, according to the power thereof; and after this manner bringeth to pass the Father, the covenants which he hath made unto the children of men. (Moroni 7:32)

These light bearers, through their condescension, provide opportunities for light and truth beyond what is deserved by the people who are exposed to it. Just as the sun receives unperceived energy and transmits it outward, energy that is transformed into light that is effectual to our earth, “chosen vessels” perceive and respond to the light that comes from God but is unknown and unknowable to normal people. They transform it into packets of light and truth that are easier to be understood and received by normal people.

This comes in at least two ways.

Most are familiar with the mechanism of explicit teaching for the promulgation of truth.

Fewer are aware of the much larger benefit that these people provide by creating and sustaining systems that promote righteous living.

There are three kinds of people in this life. The first kind will be good, no matter in what environment they are placed. The second kind are good if they are placed in an environment that supports and encourages that. The third kind are bad, no matter in what environment they are placed. The second describes most people on this earth.

It takes those who will do what is right no matter what to create environments where the majority can be better than they otherwise would. Whether it is in the receipt and publication of commandments, the creation and sustainment of righteous culture, or the creation and sustainment of governments or other organizations, these actions go far in helping others experience a better life than they would if left to their own devices.

The prophet-king Nephi provided an example of what God expects from those he has blessed with greater light and truth. Nephi's job was to a) acquire more light and truth than his fellows by applying more heed and diligence than they did, and b) sacrifice himself to a greater extent for their benefit than they themselves did. Though Nephi was indeed more advanced than his brothers, he suffered far more than they did. It was not a glamorous job. It wasn't something to be envied. This is the unavoidable experience of all who, like Nephi, listen to God's voice and do what he says. They will unavoidably receive more light and truth than their fellows, immediately be charged to impart what they can of what they have received to others, and consistently be rejected and persecuted because of their attempts to help others.

Each individual is responsible for the good they can do in the world. It is hard to overstate the effect of just a few righteous people. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” (James 5:16)

A righteous person’s efforts can save the lives of a person, a city, or even a nation. And you wouldn't even know about it.

One reason things aren't worse than they are is because the efforts of a few righteous men and women are holding back the judgments of God from the earth (see, for example, Jacob 5:50).

Still, one reason that things are as bad as they are on earth today is because people who are at the top of the Pareto distribution are not living up to their potential. They are either doing only what others do, and therefore less than they could, or they are using their gifts to make the world a worse place instead of a better one.

An example from the scriptures of each of these two scenarios would perhaps help.

The kings of Israel were meant to be spiritual leaders. Unfortunately, few were. Hezekiah was a wonderful example of one who lived up to his role. By living righteously in a wicked kingdom, he was able to reverse the covenant curses laid on his fathers, and obtain God's mercy for an entire kingdom.

The watchers—fallen angels who used their advanced knowledge to curse mankind instead of bless them—are a great example of what can happen when the spiritually advanced attempt to subvert God's purposes. Many of the problems on earth today can be traced back to information revealed inappropriately by the watchers, and much of the wickedness on earth at the time of the flood was tied to their influence and actions.

The wicked erroneously believe that the only reason a person would want to know whether they are exceptional or not is to gloat. Pride is not the motivation for being great. The cost of greatness is far greater than the benefit to all who are motivated by the vanity of carnality. Instead, the truly great are motivated by just one thing: the love of their fellowmen. The selfrecognition of their greatness has very little to do with whatever recognition they desire in the eyes of others. Instead, it has to do with their ability to cope with the exponentially increasing demands of living true to what they know, and having the stamina to continue to work against the entropy of the world.

For most, a focus on what you do right will lead to an overinflated ego: entitlement, covetousness, and sin. At some point in your ascent, though, if you don't realize you are different, you will not have enough drive to continue to act beyond what everyone else does. The status quo is far below your own potential, but you need a reason to break through it.

When you are normal and you act below your potential, bad things happen, mostly for you and sometimes for others. When you are exceptional and you act below your potential, really bad things happen, mostly for others, who rely on your light even if they don't realize it.

Ezekiel quotes the Lord in saying that a priest's duty is to: “...teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.” (Ezekiel 44:23) Without people who know better, those who do not know better will become far more wicked than they otherwise would be. Those who are only good when placed in an environment that promotes being good will be evil, and joined with those who will be evil no matter their environment, they will create a majority problem that then makes it even harder for those who would be good no matter what.

What evidence is there that many people will be evil when their environment promotes it? The Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram's studies show that many people have an “innate propensity” for evil. It is the environment that brings it out. This can be seen in inner cities, third world countries, and Indian reservations. The poverty of these people is not a result of their genetics or geography, but a direct result of their systems of thinking. Those from their communities who are raised outside of their systems of thinking prosper. Those born into their systems of thinking suffer.

Their systems of thinking were created by and are sustained by those in power. “When the wicked rule, the people mourn.” (Proverbs 29:2) The way they interact with the world around them, their government, and their principles (or lack thereof) are to blame.

What would have happened if Moses wasn't who he was? Could God have blessed the Israelites the way he did? He could not. Israel was far too wicked to merit the blessings it received. Moses was the vital ingredient that balanced the equation. Because of the righteousness of Moses in the face of the wickedness of the Israelites, God was able to bless Israel and retain his justice. Moses' intercession for Israel, in spite of all their shenanigans, opened the way for God to continue to bless them long after justice would have required their destruction.

We live in a world devoid of leadership from those who have the capacity and responsibility to provide it.

Our natural scientists sell their souls to fabricate unmerited fear about climate issues, choosing their paychecks over their consciences.

Our social scientists spin tales about gender choice, abolishing biologically-dictated gender roles by edict, promoting sexual promiscuity over traditional family units, and ignoring the harmful mental and social effects of homosexuality, as if they could create reality in the image they would like it to appear.

Our technologists create a world so complex that the majority of people cannot add value, as their IQs and/or training do not provide for creative problem-solving contributions.

Our bankers feed an unsustainable system where inflation makes it impossible to retire, trading in a birthright of contribution for the mess of porridge of the few pennies they receive from every dollar of debt they create.

Our politicians have developed a nanny state where individuals are completely disincentivized to take personal responsibility and where regulations make it nearly impossible to build a business, all in the shortsighted interest of votes from the ill-informed.

Our generals foster endless immoral wars, selling their soldiers as chattel in exchange for high salaries and cushy post-military jobs in the military/industrial complex.

The consequences of the leadership vacuum lie all around us. When Babylon falls, and it will, every aspect of the carnage will be traceable to the present failure of leaders to lead.

Being better is not what you think it is. It means suffering more than anyone else, for less personal benefit. This is repugnant to people because: 1) It is indelible proof that being less is a choice. That doesn't feel good to those who have decided not to be better. 2) People project their own wickedness onto the person who is better. They assume that he or she will do what they would if they were in that place.

Beyond the effects of these beliefs, there is an incessant stream of people telling them that they are the same as everyone else; that there is no such thing as someone who is better than another, or of one idea being better than another, or of a culture being better than another.

When God assigns someone to do something, is he making them arbitrarily special by imbuing them with special magical power? Or is he simply using someone who has already acquired most if not all of the light and truth they need to be used in the ways he chooses? God told Moses to part the Red Sea before he did it, and without that word he would not have been able to do it. But was Moses a normal man when he was told to do it? Or had he already completed 80 years of training under God's graceful tutelage? What man do you know who, if a voice in his head said, “command the seas to part and they will obey my word”, would then convince 6 million people to follow him to the beach, and then proceed— in front of all of them as they are pursued for their lives by the most powerful army in the world—to command the sea to part with no doubt that it would be done?

By fooling ourselves into believing that God instantly transforms normal men and women into holy men and women, we cut ourselves off from the instructional period every single one of them underwent. We avoid that intense, painful, prolonged journey thinking that somehow we can possess what they had after this life without doing any of the things they did during this life, which is exactly how they became who they were, and without which they could not receive what they did.

God might not command you to part the Red Sea, sure. And you might not end up rich and powerful. But if you follow every commandment you know, and every one he will give you after that, one thing will happen for sure. You will grow in light and truth at an exponential rate. Knowledge will flow to you in a way that is so powerful that no thing, no person, and no situation in your life will be able to stop it. This is how Joseph of Egypt was able to become the wisest man in the known world while locked in a dungeon for ten or so years.

If we do not accept that some people are greater than others, we cannot believe that there are behaviors, attitudes, and motivations better than our own, or worse than our own. This is damning in two ways. First, it terminates any real effort to become better. Whatever gulf exists between us and God is cemented through believing there is no bridge between. Second, it will result in the eroding of your character down to the lowest common denominator. If one isn't greater than another, then there is no reason not to adopt the most depraved behaviors, attitudes, and motivations.

We see both perspectives in play in modern society. We see the middle class adopting the worldview of the underclass in everything from work ethic to dress to music. Now, what happens on the outside is far less important than what happens on the inside, but the latter is usually evidenced by the former.

That some are better than others is objectively true.

At what point can a woman call herself wealthy? When her net worth is $100k? $200k? $20mm? Whatever the threshold, surely there is a point where the facts support that she is, in fact, wealthy.

At what point can a man call himself an expert weightlifter? When he can squat 500 lbs? 600? 700? When he holds the world record? Whatever the threshold, surely there is a point where he is, in fact and not in opinion, an expert weightlifter.

How many times does someone have to actually do exceptional things before their belief that they are exceptional ceases to be hubris or narcissism?

“For of him unto whom much is given much is required...” (D&C 82:3) If you possess more light and truth than your fellows, you have a responsibility to help them more than you would if you didn’t.

Chapter 19: Attitudes for Teaching Truth

There are certain attitudes that provide best practices of sorts for teaching truth. They may surprise you and they may seem to have nothing to do with teaching truth, but they are nonetheless vital.

When you teach via the spirit of truth, you will always learn something new.

For this and other reasons, you should always be prepared to learn something, even while and perhaps especially while in the act of teaching others.

The first key in teaching others is to remember that everything you know is incorrect or incomplete. Every time you seek to teach another, realize that they might actually teach you. A teacher must be exceedingly meek to discern and to learn a lesson from the pupil. A tremendous test of meekness is the attitude one has when interacting with those they assume know less than them.

The prideful assume that any precept that conflicts with their current understanding must be false. They judge truth based on what they already know rather than objectively evaluating it.

The meek, on the other hand, recognize that anyone can teach them something. They assume anything said might be true, and are open to the possibility that they may be wrong. Their current knowledge paradigm is always on the altar.

God said, “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it.” (D&C 93:30) Two people can testify of competing truths and both be right, because truth is contextual on awareness, and everyone’s awareness is different. The Spirit can reveal something that is true in your “sphere” of understanding, but to someone who has attained to a different “sphere,” or a higher degree of knowledge, it would be false.

This concept is hard for some to accept, but consider a decimal point number as an analogy. Additional digits of precision are true, as are fewer digits of precision. However, to the engineer possessing ten digits’ precision, the decimal of two digits’ precision is less true, and for some applications, downright wrong. Just as one could add digits of precision infinitely, God’s truth never ceases.

Because the degree of glory we enjoy in life is dictated by the degree of God's law that we live, we should always be willing and eager to receive further light and truth in order to expand and clarify the law we currently have. This will likely cause us to change what we are doing. To facilitate this process, we should always be willing to ask questions to further our understanding of answers we have already received—like a child.

We should never judge someone who sincerely and fully believes that their actions are in accordance with God’s word when we have received a different answer to the same question, knowing that it is very possible that they have progressed past us in knowledge. Instead, we should do as Nephi did when presented with his father’s strange claims of having a vision that contradicted Nephi’s understanding: we should pray and ask God. Even if we are not prepared for the answer, God will mobilize the necessary experiences in our life to bring us to the point where we can receive the same knowledge.

The world believes that the purpose of having more of anything is to be more capable of controlling others.

The truth is that more truth is good for only one thing: more adequately serving others.

God, seeing he was superior, did and does what he does to provide a pathway for others to obtain the same.

The Lord ordained those with more light and truth to do the same.

There is nothing about being better that is desirable to a carnal mind. From a carnal mindset, it is more enjoyable in every way to be mediocre. The only motivation for being better is love of God and love of your fellowman.

Being “great and noble” is not a joyful thing. It is a burden. It doesn't get you a sports car and a trophy spouse. It gets you the knowledge of why these things are not actually desirable.

Truth gets you more opportunities to suffer without recognition for the benefit of others who do not appreciate you. All who will be better will be undesirable to their fellowmen. They will be despised and rejected. They will be full of sorrow. They will suffer for the sins of others. They will be wounded by others. They will be oppressed and afflicted. In spite of all this, no one will listen to them, and they will be comforted only by the knowledge that they had done all they could.

Holding higher truth is not something to be envied in the lens of the world. To be “great and noble” is to be.

Anyone can give a person what they want. Only a real friend will give you what you need, whether or not you are wise enough to know it.

You are nothing special. But God is special, and those who seek him with all their heart will be made capable of having an immeasurable impact through obtaining and disseminating his light.

Note how the preceding promise is conditioned only on the individual’s adherence to truth and their application of faith.

God calls upon the weak things of this earth to thrash those who think they are mighty. That is the pattern in scripture. Whether it is stammering Moses, or second-string priest Ezekiel, it seems that he has a ready supply of those weak enough to listen to him.

God is able to do his work. He doesn’t need you, but he does need someone, and it may as well be you. Other people require the truth that you will acquire, assimilate, and disseminate. To the righteous, you can offer light and truth at a faster pace than they could acquire on their own. In far less time, you can convey what took you perhaps a lifetime to learn. To the unrighteous, you can offer—through your intercession—another opportunity for them to learn what they could have on their own if they were obedient and/or diligent.

Without the Lord’s condescending sacrifice, we could not obtain the light he offers us. To a much smaller but equally critical degree, your obtaining light depends on the condescension of others. You can’t be like the Lord without doing the things he did and does. You can, through your heed and diligence, obtain more than others. Then you can give it away through your condescension, supplying more to others than they were capable of obtaining by themselves. This is exactly what God did and does, and it is the whole purpose of creation. This is how you become a “savior on mount Zion” (see Obadiah 1:21).

You have a responsibility to obtain all the light you can, and to share it with others.

To the degree you do this, you will become a savior on mount Zion. To the extent that you do not, you will decrease the joy you have in this life and hereafter.

When we are willing to share what we learn, the Lord gives us more.

Those who are willing to share what they learn will find God giving them great treasures of specific wisdom just in time for them to share it with others who desperately need it.

If you don't also teach others what God has taught you, even perfect obedience to those instructions will not save you. If you do not obtain light and share it with others, you will be held responsible.

God has commanded us not to contend with each other.

Yet, not all argument is contention. The word “argue” sometimes connotes anger and disrespect, and not just in modern context. Lehi explained to Laman and Lemuel that they were incorrect in assuming that Nephi's arguments towards them were motivated by anger.

Arguments, then, are not contentious by definition, but only when they are motivated by anger. Even here, we have to separate the subtle difference between anger and “sharpness.” Arguing truth for the purpose of persuasion can include sharpness (see D&C 121:43). In fact, Jesus frequently employed sharpness. In one typical example, he said.

How would you react if someone called you a fool, full of wickedness, a hypocrite, and a murderer? Would you consider that contention? Yet, Jesus’ example shows it is not. While it is true that Jesus was gentle with the meek, he was also very sharp with the prideful. Joseph Smith said.

Jesus is the perfect example to follow. You can't emulate Jesus without arguing and, at times, with sharpness. Sharpness is often the only way to crack through false tradition, an ideological film that is almost always based on an inherited position (by definition, one not based on reasoning or evidences, but an emotive connection). It is very difficult to reason with someone who is arguing from an emotive position.

The definition of “argue” is “to give reasons or cite evidence in support of an idea, action, or theory, typically with the aim of persuading others to share one's view.” When argument is used in the literal sense of the word, the intrinsic motivation will always be persuasion. Argue is the best word to describe how one persuades: producing evidence; reasoning. In contrast, to contend means to strive in order to prove one's position is correct; to defend one's position in order to preserve it, or to oppose. All of these senses have at their heart the intent to remain in one's former position— not, as in the case of argument or debate, to seek out truth, even if it means letting go of one's former position. Contention, then, is not the presence of argument, but the lack thereof, where an individual refuses to give or receive reasons supporting a position.

Contention is about who is right, whereas debate is about what is right. Two persons who are unwilling to change their current position are unable to argue—unable to present evidence to determine what is right. They must take turns asserting who is right. They can only contend with one another. Contention is enmity: the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something. It is a feeling, not a position informed by reasoning or evidences. It is a non-neutral, non-objective, emotional, irrational practice. It is a reaction against a position rather than a defense against the evidences or reasons behind that position.

If you want to teach truth, you cannot have a contentious attitude.

The Lord described his ministry by saying.

The Savior provided the following evidence to John the Baptist when asked if he was the Christ.

Some disciples recognized Jesus’ command over the elements.

The Samaritan woman recognized Jesus as a source of light because of his supernatural knowledge of details from her past: “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” (John 4:29)

In the midst of indescribably harrowing trials, Jesus looked down from the cross at his suffering mother and asked John to take care of her, and comforted the scared but repentant thief who was also being crucified.

Jesus demonstrated fruits that indicated he had greater light and truth: He provided instruction and wisdom to alleviate the condition of the poor, the broken, the ignorant, and the incorrect. He commanded the physical world to a greater extent than standard knowledge allows. He loved those who did not deserve love, and he exercised extreme compassion while in the midst of incomparable suffering.

To the extent that you have obtained Jesus’ light, you will do Jesus’ works.

Chapter 20: Teaching Truth

What is false tradition? Many would define it as inherited tradition that is false. It’s actually much more than that.

False tradition is anything currently believed when something better is available. Because everything you believe is incorrect or incomplete, false tradition is less about what you currently believe, and more about what is available. Many beliefs can be temporarily profitable while something better is not available. Something positive or neutral will cease to be so the moment you are exposed to something better.

If you want to see the effect of tradition, share the same truth—any truth—with many people. You will see that no matter how many people you speak with, and how different they are, they will say the same things in response. It is as if they were gathered together before you spoke to them and instructed to respond in the same way.

People aren’t born with false traditions. The Lord said: “Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.” (D&C 93:38) It is much easier to teach a child the gospel than an adult, because they are not yet as full of the traditions that are well established in adults.

Most people are highly resistant to adopting new truth that expands or replaces currently held belief. They want to cross the monkey bars without letting go of the current rung. This is, of course, impossible.

While new truth will sometimes be compatible with that which is already understood, it frequently opposes the extant beliefs of the hearer. In this case, before new truth is expounded, contrary false tradition must be addressed. Old beliefs are not abandoned before the holder has a reason to believe they are insufficient.

Teaching the gospel would be easy and comfortable were it not for the fact that those being taught already believe something else, just as planting a freshly plowed field is much easier than planting a weedy abandoned lot. Because traditions almost always exist, preaching the gospel almost always consists primarily in disabusing the recipient of false tradition. This is both difficult and unpleasant.

The prominent reticence towards direct confrontation with ideas comes at a great loss. Without uprooting false tradition, the individual’s ability to have faith on the Lord unto repentance is greatly limited.

False traditions prevent acquisition of new truth, no matter the source. A new seed sprout doesn’t need sunlight or soil, but as the roots grow, it will shrivel without both. Likewise, new truth can grow only a little before tradition will smother it.

It is surprising to what extent tradition informs what we believe, how strong a hold it has on us, and how impossible it is to gain further light and truth while we are in its grip. It is not enough to skip over the false traditions people hold. False traditions will damn anyone who holds them.

Tradition has the effect of turning fertile ground into stony ground, as in the parable of the sower (see Mark 4:3-20). Tradition is pervasive, and conditions people to respond without thinking. This is why tradition is incompatible with the search for further light and truth.

Traditions grow deep roots. They grow beyond your conscious mind, and into your subconscious. You take them for granted, and build core elements of your perspective on top of them. It does not feel good to have your traditions ripped out. When this happens, everything you have built on top of them comes into question, and the passive security we bask in as humans comes into stark question. If this thing that is so core to your perspective could be false, what is stable, reliable, and real?

Although people would prefer to have truth conveyed only in ways that feel good, Jesus did not say he came to make people feel good. He said he came with a sword: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

What do you do with a sword? You separate things into two pieces.

What is he cutting? Your perspective. What is he separating? What is true from what is false. How is he doing it? Through his word. What is his word? Light and truth.

The Lord said that one of the reasons he reveals his mysteries to men is so that those men can “bring many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, convince them of the error of their ways.” (D&C 6:11) We are each responsible to “cause them to know the abominations of their fathers.” (Ezekiel 20:4) “We should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—” (D&C 123:13) “To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:79)

We must tear down false traditions in order to teach truth. There is no other way.

In fact, of the two things that a truth bearer can do (teach truth or tear down false traditions), the latter is by far the most important. Why? Because while a person can exert obedience and diligence on their own, both will be limited by the bounds of their traditions. It is very difficult for a person to overcome their false traditions without outside help. However, if a person’s false traditions are torn down, they can receive a great deal of light directly from God. While the traditions are in place, they have no ability to perceive anything outside of them, and can’t progress any farther. Cutting through false tradition is far more difficult than teaching truth. Replacing currently held beliefs more often requires another person’s intervention than does acquisition of adjacent (non-replacement) truth.

Teaching new truth will frequently call into question what the individual regards as fundamental truths—something they perceive as intertwined with who they are as a person. Great care must be taken to conscientiously address such topics. If you are going to rip out someone’s cherished foundations, it is a good idea to do it in a special time and place.

In primitive cultures, elders would teach these sorts of lessons in initiation rituals where the initiate would be taken by the elders into a remote area. The only people present would be the initiate and those who had previously been initiated. There, in a special and explicitly different place the elders would expose the initiate to higher truths that modified beliefs that the initiate assumed were foundational, but were actually incorrect or incomplete. There is great wisdom in this approach, and it is still practiced today in some tribes and religious orders.

It is unlikely that you will convince someone who believes differently than you to come into the woods with you on a retreat. And that is probably a good thing. Still, you can extract principles from this pattern of separation and apply it to your teaching.

The best way to teach fundamental truths is through a cycle consisting of containment (separating a few key ideas from everything else and indicating that you will critically investigate them), evaluation (critically investigating them), dissemination (sharing new ideas), and observation (seeing what the person does with the new truth and adapting future interaction accordingly): “the Gods watched those things which they had ordered until they obeyed.” (Abraham 4:18)

This approach gives you an opportunity to preempt catastrophe in the life of another person. You are taking the inevitable consequences of someone’s beliefs (unknown to them but known to you), carefully containing them, and exposing them in a controlled way. You bound off a discrete chunk of chaos and create a physical and emotional safe place that allows your subject to violently rehash everything they think they know until they incorporate the new light you have given them into their previous model.

The Lord taught.

As you completely obey your best understanding of God’s will for you in all things, he will give you more light. His word is the light and it will reveal things as they really are.

As the light within you grows brighter and brighter, you will find that as you interact with the world, the light reveals to you how things as they really are differ from things as they seem to others. The light within you will provide a different perception, and this different perception will yield suggestions for how to change behavior and belief to interact with reality more accurately.

For those that have experienced what is described here, they will be very familiar with the burning feeling that comes when a better outcome is possible, but unseen, except in the light inside you.

For those who are unfamiliar with what is described here, imagine the last time you interacted with the black sheep in your family, or the friends you have with rotten kids, or some other similar situation where it was abundantly clear that there was a better way to do something that would result in the alleviation of many of the negative consequences tied to the present situation. Recall how you could see that there were specific beliefs about the situation that were causing the undesirable outcomes, and how intensely you wished that you could help the people involved to know what you knew.

This is what it is like to have more light inside of you. As the light grows, you will feel this way in more and more situations. It is possible to come to the point where you feel like this in every situation: where the light God provides shows you the difference between the present, telestial (or worse) situation, and the celestial alternative.

As a light bearer, your responsibility and privilege is to bring about the celestial alternative to the present situation to the greatest extent possible, given the constraints of the choices and desires of the people involved.

There are two ways of doing this. The first is to teach what the light reveals to you. The second, which is both far more difficult and far more beneficial, is to teach them how to obtain and apply the light for themselves.

Chapter 21: Enabling Others’ Search for Truth

It is good to teach what the light reveals to you, but it is better to teach how the light reveals to you. When you teach what the light reveals to you, you can transform someone’s life. You can save them from the consequences of living a lesser light. You can enable them to receive the blessings of greater light than they have. You can pay a great deal of the cost for obtaining that light through your own sacrifice, a sacrifice that is beyond what they are capable of and/or willing to undertake themselves. But there are limitations in this method.

Every time you share what the light has revealed to you, you will give them a reason to make you their idol. The case of Moses and the Israelites demonstrates what happens when people rely too much on a man. God wanted Israel to become “a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” (Exodus 19:6) He wanted all of them to come into his presence, but they would not ascend to this state. Instead, they appointed Moses as the intermediary between them and God (see Exodus 20:19). It didn’t end well for them.

As long as those you teach have an intermediary between them and God, they will be eternally limited in the amount of light they can acquire. Inasmuch as they lean on you, they do not lean on God. This is much more than a matter of who gets credit. No matter how much light you have, everything you believe is incorrect or incomplete. By becoming the provider of truth to them, you also damn them to inheriting your own limitations of understanding. Because of this, the focus should always be on helping them develop the ability to get their own light.

The main objective of a light bearer isn’t to share what their light reveals, but to help others learn how to perceive and obtain light for themselves. The main objective of a light bearer is to become redundant.

It is difficult to persuade people to receive the teachings revealed by your light. It is much more difficult to persuade people to seek light for themselves.

During his mortal life, Jesus tried to get the people to learn how to perceive and obtain the light for themselves. The people were willing to eat the bread he miraculously provided, but not adopt the process he used to gain the light that made the miracle possible. He said.

The real riches of the gospel are not limited to the static lessons revealed in his light. What is incalculably more valuable is learning how to obtain the light itself. The Lord taught this lesson as he sat by a well.

What the light reveals to you will be limited to your understanding and the situation at the moment. If you impart the spring of truth itself, those you teach will be able to seek more light from God directly at any time and in any place.

The word dissemination comes from two Latin roots, literally meaning “to plant an external seed.” Human conception is a great metaphor for how to teach truth. The mutual process of sex culminates in the external planting of an actuating material that, internal to the female, works with what she already had, changing it into something that is alive, growing, and independent of the man. This is how we disseminate truth: we engage in a mutual process designed to culminate in increasing the light inside of someone, which can then work within them to transform what they already have into something more.

Only the spirit can teach someone (see 1 Corinthians 2:11, 14). So how do you increase that spirit inside someone?

Your job is to 1) reveal something they had not before supposed, 2) help them believe it could be true by providing a persuasive argument and 3) invite them to act to test it for themselves.

Sometimes, this process is very easy, and can be done without any intentional effort. But if the only teaching opportunities you can take advantage of are those that need no conscientious effort or skill, then you are missing out on uncountable high-value interactions that could change people’s lives for the better.

In order to be an effective teacher, you absolutely must develop the ability to persuade people. Far from manipulation tactics, godly persuasion is a skillset focused on unfolding rational argument to change with the intent to help.

If the only way to identify truth is to ask God, why does God view rational argument as so important in teaching that he revealed a commandment to describe it? In other words, if all that can be done to identify truth is to ask God, why bother doing anything but dictating a principle and ending with an invitation to test the putative truth? First, most people won’t act without a really good reason to. Why would they, when they don’t believe what you are saying could ever be true? Second, even if they test the putative truth, their assumption of the falsehood of what you are saying will make it impossible to exercise real intent.

Real intent is manifested when an individual believes that what is being prayed about is possible and they are willing to act on it if told it is true. Moroni explains that God will not answer prayers that are not offered with real intent.

Lastly, even if an individual is able to marshal real intent, the more an individual clings to their preconceived notions, the more likely they are to conflate their own ideas with revelation from the Spirit.

For these reasons, teaching truth effectively almost always requires rational argument.

The Lord has said, on more than one occasion, “let us reason together, that ye may understand;” (D&C 50:10, see also Isaiah 1:18). To reason is to consider logical arguments with the intent of reaching a conclusion. In order to be rational, the conclusion must reconcile all addressed evidences. Reasoning is a two-way process. The teacher can expect protests from the student, and must be prepared to respond to every rational reason the student might have to disbelieve the teacher’s message.

What does this look like in practice? We have a wonderful example of the Lord's persuasion of Nephi, who was commanded to slay Laban.

The exchange between God and Nephi is notable. It is a two-way conversation. God welcomes challenges to what he commands. He invites them. He is prepared to make counterarguments or, in some cases, to cede his ground. As God is, we must also “...be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” (1 Peter 3:15)

It is not enough to be in the right. A teacher must be able to deliver his message skillfully enough that it stands as a witness, beyond reproach. A teacher must ensure that, should the message be rejected, it is not due to the fault of the messenger.

Providing a reason for what you posit is not an abstract activity. A skillful teacher must ground each teaching attempt in the context of the hearer. Jesus showed ample examples of this skill during his mortal ministry. Perhaps it is best summed up by Paul’s description.

By grounding his argument in the context of the beliefs of his audience, Paul was able to anticipate and address the concerns his audience would express that prevented them from believing his message could be true. This required Paul to know his audience. Ideally, this always consists of a twoway exchange. In practice this is not always possible, and gospel teachers have to anticipate—hopefully with the guidance of discernment through the Holy Ghost—what concerns their audiences have.

Chapter 22: Dealing with Resistance

Teaching truth is not a process of “one and done.” It consists in patient, layer-by-layer, careful, intentional exposure to more and more light. An illustrative example of this process is given in how God created the heavens and earth.

In the beginning, the earth was without form and void, and there was only darkness. Our location was unseen and unorganized, an undifferentiated amalgam of matter.

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” (Genesis 1:3) When something is dark, there is material there, it is just unseen. The light was not there before. He called it forth. When matter heeds God it emits light. “The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.” (Psalm 119:130) Where before there was no sign of light, there were now materials that possessed light. What changed? God spoke into the darkness. What was once undistinguishable matter now became distinguishable: that which is enlightened, and that which is not.

“And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1:4) God watched the result of his injecting light into the system. He saw that some of the materials had responded to his influence. Then he divided the material that had responded from the material that had not. Until there is light, darkness cannot be divided. Not all matter heeds God equally. It all has agency.

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:5) Before the creation of the sun, there were concepts called day and night. After distinguishing between the matter that responded to his influence and the matter that did not, he divided these and further specified the groups by naming them.

He took further action to define and subdivide the previously undefined materials: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” (Genesis 1:6)

God's spirit moved upon the darkness, and some of the matter responded to his light. The initial step of creation was to separate the matter that responded to his light and the matter that did not—two groups he called “day” and “night” long before the sun was created. Successive steps further separated matter according to their response to his influence. God continued with this process until his creation was finished: speaking into the darkness, seeing what reflected light, and filtering based on differences.

This process is how any being brings order forth from chaos. You have to discern the next step of the matter—what it would look like with more light—and then provide the best possible opportunity for it to accept it.

This is a custom process. “Good” means that which improves. But what is an improvement to one is not necessarily an improvement to all. If it leads to denial of God, it is not good. Truth that is too far beyond what someone is willing to consider is not good. This is why God does not throw us into the deep end of the truth pool, but patiently unravels truth line upon line.

Recall that good and evil are contextual to the situation of the individual. Whenever you attempt to project your disillusionment on others, you must first discern their current perspective. A person’s willingness to consider new truth lies on a continuum, and most people are willing to consider only the smallest deviations from what they currently consider to be right and wrong.

You have to be wise and patient in how you teach. Here is a question to contemplate: How did you come to the knowledge you are about to share? Chances are, you acquired it at a great price, with much time and effort. It takes an immense amount of skill, or at least deliberation, to package what required a great deal of time and effort to acquire into a bitesized package that will be instantly digestible to someone else. Consider an analogy: Suppose it took you 15 years of education to get to the point where you learned the ins and outs of integral calculus. Suppose you come across a young teenager who has a problem calculus can solve. Can you get him to the point where he understands enough about calculus to get the job done in, say, 15 minutes? Of all those who know calculus, what percentage could simplify it to practicality instantaneously? This is the meaning of the verse: “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” (2 Timothy 4:2)

You don't just dump what you know on someone. You learned these things slowly, over time. God gave these things to you not so that you could vomit them onto someone else, but so that you can exercise your faculties to construct a suitably controlled experience crafted to ensure the highest likelihood of acceptance in the person you are teaching.

Do not dispense more truth to someone than they are able to handle. You have to preach just what is needed for the next proximate improvement. It isn’t about teaching what you know. It is about teaching the next thing that is needed.

Consider this analogy: The mission of the army special forces is to train the local rabble into functional soldiers. Each member of the unit is capable of training and leading a platoon of indigenous pseudo-soldiers. The level of skill they impart is not overly sophisticated, and yet the Green Berets are recognized as the most highly trained soldiers of all. It takes a great deal more knowledge to masterfully impart a well-constructed invitation to advance than it does to actually make that advancement. This is a case of the tip of the iceberg vs. its underwater mass.

Anyone familiar with Boy Scouts knows that the first thing boys want to do when building a fire is throw large logs onto the small pile of lit kindling. The extinguishing of the fire after the log is thrown on does not indicate malfunction of the kindling. A large log can smother even the most perfect pile of lit kindling. The point is not that the kindling is bad, but that it is not ready for the log. Building a fire is a science. Until the fire is hot enough and large enough, a log will only hurt and not help it. However, once the fire reaches a certain temperature and size, the only thing that will permit it to continue growing and heating is a large log.

New truth to one’s beliefs is like a big log is to a fire. Provided too early, new truth can smother any fledgling belief, no matter how strong it is. However, once a critical mass of truth is learned, it is the lack of new truth—fuel to the fire—and not the presence of it that will cause the belief to wither away.

One part of the challenge of teaching is in paring down what you know to what they need and what they are ready for. Another part of the challenge is framing the next proximate thing they need in the best possible way.

Consider everything you know as a 4,000-page novel. Your job is to think through the whole novel, pick out one situation that would be helpful, then pick out all the framing materials to best present it. It is immensely more challenging than merely reading the book! This is what Jesus did all the time.

You never reveal all you know. If you want God to reveal things to you, you have to learn how to keep your mouth shut. God will reveal things to you that have never been revealed from the foundation of the world, as he does to all the faithful (see Mark 4:22, Jeremiah 33:3, Moroni 10:5, etc.). If you don’t learn to keep these things to yourself, he won’t tell you about them.

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)

You have to learn to take in all truth, but then only carefully dispense parts of it to others. You have to learn to capture and contain truth without blurting it out, to carefully construct situations and gently lead people along the path where they are most able to accept it, just as a shepherd would lovingly lead his sheep to greener pastures. You can’t selfishly blurt things out simply because you want relief. You have to subjugate your needs to their needs.

God revealed to Nephi everything that his brothers would do, and everything their posterity would do. He knew they would completely reject the gospel. Still, he treated them as if he did not know this. Why did God reveal these things to Nephi if he wanted Nephi to act as if he did not know them? Because, by the law of divine justice, God was obligated to bring judgment upon Nephi's wicked brothers. By revealing the future to Nephi, he was able, through Nephi, to exercise mercy on their behalf, giving the brothers yet another chance, while still satisfying the law of justice. If, like Nephi, you can keep things to yourself until and unless their revelation improves others, you too will find yourself being used by the Lord as a means to bring about mercy in the lives of others who otherwise would be cut off from further light and truth through their persistent disobedience.

Like a parent, you should keep truths hidden until your children are ready to contend with the chaos at that level. A parent's job is to provide a framework for their children that empowers them to derive order from chaos. It is not so much about the principles that a parent teaches (though these matter), but more that the parent teaches the child the meta-level process of acquiring, assimilating, and testing principles.

What one is capable of receiving is not the same as what they are willing to receive. If someone rejects truth they are capable of receiving, they offend the light within them. As soon and as often as they do this, they will lose some of the light they already have. Your objective, then, is to offer the largest portion of light that they are willing to receive.

It seems that everyone has a line in the sand. Should they? No. But they will.

Sometimes, even that small correction will make the person so offended that they will cut you off. Don’t let this discourage you. Jesus said that laying down your life for your friends is the highest sign of love. Is losing your friend easier or harder than giving your life for them?

Should a person's line in the sand prevent you from correcting them? No. Remember, correction is the kindest act you can do. If a principle is true, and someone doesn't have it, and you withhold it from them, you are exposing them to all the negative consequences of not having it. Is that kind? No, it is selfish. Kindness is doing what would lead to the greatest good with the person. Giving them what they want is not kindness, when you know better.

Start with the smallest possible correction. If a person can't accept a small invitation, they will reject a larger one as sure as the sun rises each morning, because light cleaves to light and those who turn away from a little light will always turn away from more.

If they aren’t willing to receive the full truth that you could teach them, consider how you could reformat and present a lesser version that will have the greatest positive impact in protecting them from harmful consequences and/or helping them encounter benefits.

God, possessing all light pertaining to this scope, devised a way for everyone else to obtain the same. His commandments don’t directly dump the light onto people. Instead, recognizing that they are not of themselves acquiring the raw light that is always available to all, God provides his commandments and our experiences as a way of incorporating light and truth at the pace we will allow. It is a very individual process, and one that requires wisdom and patience. In other words, don’t get trapped into thinking that dispensations of light and truth must be large or sudden. It could be that they are. You could save someone a lifetime of effort by transmitting what you know to them in their extreme humility, desire, and obedience. More likely is a situation where your store of light is less about a lump sum transmittance and more about a calculated, custom scenario that helps get that person just a little more than they had before.

People can and will remove the tools you have to impart new truth. As they strike off your options, evaluate which you have left. There can and will be a point where they have cut themselves off from every avenue at your disposal. When a person refuses to consider what you say, you should stop saying more, unless God has explicitly commanded you to.

It is unlikely people will say “please shut up.” Instead, they will give indirect clues to the fact that they have closed themselves off from the light you offer. The most obvious is avoiding you. But there are subtle actions like making excuses for not acting and using shut-down phrases like “agree to disagree,” “your truth,” “my truth,” etc. Also, beware of the use of exceptions as the general rule: “but what about some rare exceptional case?” The use of these tactics reveal that the person is not interested in further light and truth. One uses these tactics when they can’t counter your argument with facts, but would rather not cede their now defunct beliefs. When you hear these phrases, you should interpret the person as saying, “You have convinced me of my error, but I’d rather not change, and this causes me pain. Can you please leave me alone so I can continue in my willful blindness in peace?”

You are responsible for the consequences of another's actions until and unless you ensure that they are aware of them.

The only exception to this rule is when you have already given that person a lesser invitation and they have rejected it.

People can’t be neutral. They are either good (reconciled to the light within them) or bad (in rebellion against the light within them).

How you interact with a rebellious person—someone who is not reconciled to the light they have—is very different to how you interact with a reconciled person.

When you present new light and truth to someone, you expand the light within them. They can accept it or reject it. When they reject it, which will happen most of the time, they will not remain neutral to you. They will hate you. The more light you have, the more they will hate you.

There are two categories of people: spiritual givers and spiritual takers. By middle age, everyone ought to be aware of what category they fit into. Surprisingly, however, members of both groups seem to somehow convince themselves that they are like everyone else, with both categories doing so for very different reasons. Spiritual takers do not realize who they are due to a mix of pride, selfishness, and loving a lie, all of which are discussed elsewhere in this book. Spiritual givers do not realize who they are because of humility, unconditional love, and seeing the potential in others. The rest of this chapter will discuss these people in an attempt to help them recognize and assume their potential in life.

In this world, all things are incessantly pulled downward by the background of a lowly state of light and truth. Most people and things subscribe to this level of light and truth. However, there are some people who subscribe to a higher level of light and truth. In their interactions with the world, they constantly invite and entice others to act according to the higher level of light and truth.

Do you doubt you are someone special? Specialness does not come by virtue of a lottery. It is not rare by design, but rare because so few exert the effort required to fulfill the divine potential present in every child of God. Anyone can be a spiritual giver, because what you give is not your greatness, but God’s greatness, and he is willing to give his greatness to anyone who will trust, seek, and obey him. It is up to you.

The purpose of a person with higher light and truth is to: 1) expose others to greater light, and 2) alleviate the consequences of the ignorance of those with lesser light. This mimics, on an infinitesimally small scale, the intercession of the Lord Jesus: they obtain more light and truth, and they dispense it to others who have not put in the same effort to obtain it, satisfying the demands of justice through their condescending sacrifice.

Most of Jesus’ followers past and present don’t actually believe in him, but in his goodies. They adore what he can do for them, as they believe, but couldn’t care less about how he is (and therefore how they ought to be).

Multiplying the loaves and fishes produced enough public attention that the ranks of Jesus’ followers swelled. These disciples were so numerous that he had to flee by night to escape the crowd. When they discovered his new location, he criticized them for their motives. “Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled.” (John 6:26)

If you are a truth bearer, you ought to prepare yourself for the same. There will never be a shortage of people who are happy to have you bear the consequences of their ignorance. They are happy to enjoy the fruits of your wisdom, but they have no interest in the tree that produced the fruit.

Adam lived for over 900 years, meaning he was alive during all generations previous to Noah. Do you find it strange that nowhere in scripture do we see any account of Adam preaching to his posterity? Isn't it strange that Enoch went on a mission to preach the gospel, despite the fact that Adam was still around and only middle-aged at the time?

Shem, son of Noah, lived for 600 years. He was alive both when Abraham was born and when Abraham died. He died well into Isaac’s life. Isn’t it strange that we have no record of his preaching to the people? Isn’t it strange that the only record we have of him at all is his blessing Abraham (if you accept that Shem is Melchizedek), and only after Abraham had completed so many of his experiences in life?

What were these people doing with their time? If they were preaching, why do we have no record of it? If they weren't, what were they up to?

Everyone who has light shares that light. Even if they don’t do it very effectively, they can’t help but radiate the light they have.

These holy men surely taught others. The fact that we don’t have their teachings is not a reflection on how they spent their time, but instead an instance of the principle of windows of truth.

When someone progresses in truth, they encounter higher blessings, but also separate themselves (to a degree) from those who possess lower grades or smaller quantities of truth. In order to progress to the level of law and glory (which are the same) that he possesses, the Father had to separate himself from those of telestial and terrestrial glory. Though he has constant and total connection to them through the spirit, he cannot occupy the same space with them. People also experience this, on a lesser scale, here on earth.

As a person acquires more truth, his capacity to preach it to those of lower glory/law without revealing a degree of truth above what they can bear is diminished. For every degree of glory, there is a degree of glory at which interaction is no longer possible without unavoidable damage. Were the Father to appear to a terrestrial person, the latter would immediately be destroyed. A person can obtain enough light that interaction with those of lower levels of glory will cause them to permanently turn away from the truth.

The more spiritually intelligent a person is, the more often their interactions with someone will be correcting in nature. Unfortunately, people don't want to learn; they want to feel good about themselves as they are; they want to be left alone. Juxtaposing these two opposites will help you understand the separation from normal society that comes as a person acquires more light and truth.

Why can't those who have more truth simply keep their mouths shut? Because a fundamental principle of acquiring truth is to always stand for it, at all times and in all places. It is so fundamental that it is the covenant we make at baptism (though few keep it).

The sons of Adam separated themselves from everyone else. They fled to a mountain where they could be separate from the masses. Enoch, who was raised in this separate environment, was called to go to preach to his cousins, those who had been born and raised in the inverse to his experience: in an environment absent from those who had followed God.

As you acquire more light, you are less able to teach that light to the masses, who generally reject higher order truth. But you will be able to help those who have acquired greater light. These are fewer, but those that can help them are fewer still.

The slow speed at which others accept truth can be discouraging. When people reject what you try to give them, you may be tempted to get depressed as you consider how much effort and suffering they could have avoided by accepting what you offered. You may sorrow at the consequences you see will follow in their lives for having rejected the advanced light you offered. Consider an alternative perspective.

When you remain true to the light within you in spite of the darkness around you, you emanate light. This is true whether people accept your light or not. Light is never wasted. Everything you do that is right will benefit the world, whether it is perceived and accepted or not.

At any moment, choose to live earnestly according to your current understanding of right and wrong, particularly when it hurts. Treat people better than they deserve to be treated. Stand up for those who are oppressed. Help others become better than they were. Gratefully give up the things you have earned for the benefit of others, particularly those who will not comprehend and/or appreciate what you are doing.

Chapter 23: Ascent

As someone who has acquired greater light and truth, you are capable of seeing others and their place in reality to a more accurate extent than they can see themselves. Because you have a broader and deeper view of reality, you can guide them around obstacles they do not see to better outcomes than they are aware. You can emit light by helping them see what is currently darkness to them.

Even when a person is fully reconciled to the light they have, their perception of reality is incorrect or incomplete in every way. While your perspective is likewise incorrect and incomplete, if it is advanced compared to theirs, through your skillful interactions, you can share with them what you’ve obtained while sparing them a great deal of the cost you had to pay to obtain it.

This process of emitting light is akin to what happens with a lighthouse in the dark. A lighthouse shines its light for a moment on each section of the sea as it broadcasts its beam in a circular track. Everything in its spotlight momentarily transforms into what it could be if it were continuously surrounded by light. Shapeless blobs transform into differentiated surfaces, some shining back, others absorbing the light. Then, the beam continues on. Any ship that happened to be touched by the light can decide how to respond to that light.

Because the light inside you is bright, you can use it by allowing it to shine into your observations and reflect back a vision of what could be if they had the same light within them. Then you can share that with them. You can lift the downtrodden by helping them see how much God loves them. You can remove the scales from the blind by helping them see causes and consequences of which they were previously unaware. You can articulate their potential, and help them believe that something better is both possible and attainable.

Your light will bring forth potentialities in others that otherwise would not manifest. The light within you is like salt, which preserves and enhances what it is added to.

You have immense capacity for good. Use it.

Be aware that when you shine your light, it will be the minority of people that respond beneficially to it.

The greatest sorrow is to see the potential of what others could be if they embraced the light. It is also the loneliest sorrow, because they don't see it themselves. You bear the weight of knowing what could have been, and you carry that weight alone.

Sorrow is not the only cost you incur by shining your light. Realize that a candle on a hill is a beacon, but it is also a target. As you shine your light, you will find that while some benefit from and respond well to it, it will mostly attract negative attention. Do it anyway.

In the opening lines of the Bible we read.

The Greek account of creation parallels that found in Genesis: “From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night (Nyx); but of Night were born Aether and Day (Hemera), whom she conceived and bore from union in love with Erebus.” Translating these characters into the properties they represent, this reads: Unspecified matter was divided into deep darkness and night, and night was further differentiated into light and day. It is interesting that the Greeks made a distinction between darkness and night, and light and day, whereas these four different ideas are collapsed into two in modern Christian thought, though they obviously exist separately in the Genesis account.

There is much discussion about what the Genesis account means. In Hebrew, “the Spirit of God” is the word ruah, which means “breath” or “spirit.” Though the New Testament is translated from Greek, the best use of this concept is probably used there.

The Spirit is what actuates chaos. It is how order is born of chaos.

Chaos is the unknown—everything that lies outside of your awareness. As a bearer of light, your job is to exercise the increased trust in God that you possess to walk deeper into chaos than your fellows, to mine light and truth, to bring it back into the normal world, and to offer it to others in carefully organized packets: “To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:79)

The creation story of creating order from chaos is not just a nice story, nor is it only a literal account of how God organized us and our surroundings. It is a description of a system that is just as vital to your daily life as it is to the creation of the cosmos. The creation narrative teaches us the pattern of how light is propagated. Whether in the universe or in you, God addresses the void, an invitation is issued, light is distinguished from darkness, and light is mined and grouped.

Matter is eternal. It cannot be created or destroyed. This matter is not the light, but each piece of matter has a degree of light and truth it has attained. Matter can be organized into bodies great and small, and when this happens the degree of light and truth of the body is an amalgam of the light and truth attained by its parts.

Creation is a machine that increases the light associated with matter by extending invitations to greater light and truth. Some matter responds by one, ten, or a hundred fold. Some matter does not respond. The purpose of the gospel is to provide a means through which all matter can increase in the degree of light it possesses.

What does it mean to order chaos? You set up walls around a piece of the infinite unknown. You systematize it, name it, think about it, and reduce it. You create a finite approximation of the continuous unknown. You help other people deal with problems that lie beyond their capacity to contend with. By bringing the causes of these problems from the unknown into the known, you give them a way to deal with what they couldn’t deal with before. You discover more light, you perceive more of reality; you distill it, codify it, and name it.

Order from chaos is about abstracting the chaos into a form that requires far less attention to understand than it did in its raw form. Think of a farm. You don't just go to a virgin piece of land and start planting grape vines. You first clear an area and use the logs to build a cabin. And there is a right way—an effective way—to do both. You don't worry about the stumps right away—that is polish. You just focus on clearing enough land to grow wheat to keep yourself alive. You find a wife and start having kids so that in a few years you'll have a whole lot of extra labor. And so on. You aren't constantly reinvesting the huge amount of labor it takes to clear land. You shift your work output into more refined expressions to leverage the foundation you have built. You plant orchards and fields, then shift again to annual planting and harvesting.

We aren’t meant to continuously spin on the basics of knowledge. We are meant to systematically learn more and more. Even if we have to rehash something we thought we had figured out before, it is to replace it with something better, not to rebuild the same cabin from scratch without any improvement.

Adam was tasked to name the animals God created. The role of men is to survey the formless chaos and bring order to it by imaginatively differentiating it—using language to describe it, to partition the continuous and unknowable into discrete, knowable chunks, to mine out and distill the light from the darkness by penetrating the darkness with light.

We must first discover beyond what we know. This can come by several means, including an impromptu revelation, a situation that overcomes our current principles, or by actively seeking more instruction on a topic. Second, we must overcome the awareness that we have gained through deriving or discovering new or better principles than we previously held.

Only then can you become a guide to others in their chaos. A guide doesn't necessarily solve these problems. What he does is provide a framework for dealing with them: A language for understanding them, a system of causality. Here is this tangled mess that overwhelms you just thinking about it, and here is a way of understanding it in an actionable way. This is what can be done about it. You expose them to a world they didn’t know, and then you provide them an entry point to their own journey. You give them the tools they need, and send them off.

God created by speaking into the darkness. He acted while there was yet nothing to act upon. He, alone, organized form and order amidst chaos. He did so by generating a plan and executing it while there was still no temporal basis for it. He knew where he was going, even if it wasn’t obvious to anyone else. This is how you must operate if you would be a guide to others in their journey through chaos.

Chaos is neither good nor bad. For one, it depends on what you do with it. Secondly, “good” and “bad” are concepts that require the context of one’s awareness. By definition, chaos is what is beyond one’s awareness. All things are created from and refined in chaos. In Genesis, land comes from water. Light comes from darkness. Day comes from night. Whales come from the sea. Adam comes from the earth. These are all good things.

In manageable quantities, chaos sustains creation, or organization. In unmanageably large quantities, it destroys by overwhelming.

Take, for example, the chaos that comes from water. Water is required for life, but too much water dismantles creation by flood, tidal wave, etc. There are quantities of water that no structure can sustain. Too much water is additively destructive. It puts too much into a system and overwhelms it.

While water creates, fire is destructive, purifying chaos. It takes away. It removes anything that cannot bear it. It challenges. Precious metals are refined through fire. Fire burns away what is dead. Paul taught: “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) Cardboard is very ordered, and wood is very ordered, but the order cannot withstand fire. Improvement can’t come without fire.

When you are in a water phase, you are ascending. You are growing. When you are in a fire phase, you are being pruned, purified, and tested. You are either growing fruit or being pruned.

You are either in the water or in the fire. There isn't a third road. While you will rest from all things you’ve overcome, there is always more to overcome. Any perceived rest during this life is fleeting and temporary. You are either being created, or you are being refined. There is no rest. The fire purges the impurities from you, revealing both what you have and what you lack. The water provides the womb-like building state, where you can address those holes.

There are people in this world who lack the skills, knowledge, and/or determination to acquire the requirements of life. They are unable to order the chaos that exists at the minimal end of life. They have not developed the principles required to overcome the basic challenges of subsistence. They are unable to anticipate and overcome unexpected outcomes.

How do you help these people? If you stepped in and removed the symptoms of their inability to deal with the minimal levels of chaos, chaos would inevitably generate more symptoms from the same sources that the previous symptoms came from, as the principles to deal with and overcome them have not been discovered and adopted. You can't help them by removing the symptoms, and they are not interested in learning the principles.

Society today has the unfortunate attribute of being a system that sinisterly exposes people to far greater chaos than they can handle by insulating them against the consequences of their decisions on the most basic topics by giving them more resources than they can effectively manage. Technology, debt, and other illusory innovations cushion people from their limitations and mistakes, allowing them to encounter even greater levels of chaos that they are certain to fail to order instead of allowing them to contend with their inability to correctly make the most basic decisions in life. To get to a place where they can actually develop, and where they must develop before they are ready to contend with greater chaos, they must see through the illusions and perceive their limitations and the fruits of their feelings, beliefs, and actions.

Your duty is to obtain a greater awareness and then intentionally and skillfully impart ordered chaos to them.

The journey from normal life into the chaos and back again is not for the faint-hearted. Every step of the way is difficult and no amount of practice makes it any easier. Most people avoid taking the journey altogether. Some few engage in it, but many are overcome along the way, becoming distracted or succumbing to temptation or apathy. Some finish the first part of the journey and go into the chaos, but can’t find their way back out. These never journey back to normal life to make a contribution to their fellows, ending up as hermits, nomads, or unapproachable eccentrics. Some are institutionalized or end their lives. Some very few complete the journey back to normality to share their boon with others.

Does this description seem exaggerated or fanciful? You see this pattern all over our myths and stories. But it is also reality. You find it recorded in the scriptures. Examples include the journey of the Lord, Moses, Abraham, Enoch, Paul, and many others. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to find a righteous man in the scriptures who did not follow this pattern. You also find this pattern all over modern history if you look into the lives of great intellectuals from Newton to Nietzsche. You will find this to be the case: The more light one seeks, the deeper into the darkness they must go, and the less likely they are to recover.

Why is the journey so difficult? Mining truth requires an immense amount of otherworldly focus. Obtaining the truth requires the ability to drill deep into thoughts that lie far outside normality. You have to develop the ability to enter and stay in a deep limbic space. The more effective you are at going into that chaos, the harder it is to dwell in normal life. As tradition teaches, Enoch faced this challenge when his visits to heaven got longer and longer until finally, he stopped coming back. The Lord experienced this tension as he awoke early to interact with the Father before carrying about his mundane-by-comparison daily work.

There are some strategies that may assist you in navigating this cycle. From Moses’ experience, we learn the importance of transition time and space. Moses waited on an isolated mountaintop for a week before entering the Lord’s presence. That mountain was not quite heaven, but not quite earth, either. He was isolated from society, but not quite in heaven. Coming down from that experience, he wore a veil to cover his face, which still glowed from the experience. As you have these experiences, you have to realize that it takes time to get into and out of limbic space. You have to be intentional with how you manage these transitions. You may need to wake up very early in the morning, as Jesus did, to provide a separation from daily life through sleep and isolation, as well as time to transition out of limbic space before it is time to go to work.

As mentioned before, there is a real danger of losing one’s mind or soul in this process. The problem with chaos is that there is so much more there than you could ever do anything about. When you open the door to chaos, you also open yourself to being overcome. The secret is knowing what you can do something about, how to handle that, and how to not worry about the rest. You absolutely must develop the ability to focus on a specific goal, and learn to ignore everything else.

Those who struggle with anxiety will never be able to mine light from chaos until they overcome it by acquiring the tools their condition reveals they lack. They must learn to intentionally and correctly discern between what they can affect and what lies outside of their control. Anxiety is the manifestation of an inability or unwillingness to distinguish between what you can do something about and what you can’t. When you incorrectly classify these categories, or don’t classify them, you get stuck in a negative feedback loop where you know you ought to be doing something more, but you feel overwhelmed and can’t enumerate specific actions. When you correctly distinguish between what you can and can’t do anything about, and you do all you can on what you can, you become free from anxiety.

When you can successfully order what you already know, you are ready to order what you do not know by walking into the chaos.

As you gain practice in walking into chaos and returning with light, you will see that, contrary to our myths and stories, where the hero goes through this journey once, you can come to the point where you do it daily. In fact, you will see that the greatest epic journeys are actually composites of daily mini-journeys.

While those who take up the cross of truth-seeking are already in the minority, and justified in their exhausted retirement at the end of a cycle, the reality is that you came to this world to mine and dispense as much truth as you have life to give. There is no reason the cycle need take place only once. We ought to wear out our lives in seeking, acquiring, and dispensing all the truth we have the power to.

Jacob was shown a ladder into heaven, with angels ascending and descending. But he understood that experience very differently after he later climbed the ladder himself. The process is seen from the outside as climbing a ladder, but experienced as crawling with your face on the ground.

In his youth, fleeing from his murderous brother, Jacob crossed the wilderness to spend twenty years as a stranger in a strange land. He lived in a foreign culture, serving under an unfair and dishonest man, dealing with the daily struggles of serving two capricious and inconsistent wives, many children, many servants, and a large cattle operation. This daily grind culminated in his return home.

His journey was intense. He was in charge of a sizable company of men, women, cattle, and small children. There would have been substantial work to do to care for the cattle and children along the way, making the long journey of several hundred miles even longer. The trip could have taken months. The whole time he was beset by anxiety over what Esau might do to him and his family once they reunited. Jacob “was greatly afraid and distressed” in fear of his brother, who he thought wanted to kill him (see Genesis 32:7).

Upon reaching the river, Jacob sent his company ahead in partitions. He was left alone at evening. Despite the arduous journey and the exhaustion that no doubt overwhelmed him, he spent the entire night in focused, intense prayer. At some point in the night, the Lord appeared to Jacob. Here is the Genesis account of Jacob’s experience.

This account has been modified and degraded over time. Here is a more accurate account of what transpired.

Instead of appearing in a dream, where the physically impure body is protected from the glory of the Lord, Jacob physically saw the Lord in glory. Initially, the Lord appeared in an impulse of light and fire some distance from Jacob. It was so intense that it knocked Jacob to the ground with such force that it popped his leg bone out of his hip socket. As a witness to the force that hit him, this injury is most often seen today in intense car accidents.

The Lord dwells in everlasting burnings, and this self-contained, nonextinguishing ball of fire was at once violent, loud, peaceful and beautiful. The overwhelming nature of the light at first pinned Jacob on his face. The light from glory is not like the light we see in the telestial kingdom. It is not just a visual phenomenon. Even with the brightest telestial light, the only physical effect is warmth on the skin. Light from glory pierces your body thoroughly. It is an utterly intense experience that permeates your being. In extreme pain from both his hip and the reaction of his flesh to the glory of God, he struggled to breathe as he attempted to shield his face from the light. The scene went on for what seemed like an eternity: Jacob struggling to hold on, and the Lord patiently waiting in silence. As the light penetrated his shielding arm and his closed eyelids, the glory began to purify Jacob's flesh. The pain started to gradually ease as the glory of God burned out his impurities. As he persisted in God’s glory, he became more and more sanctified and more and more comfortable in God’s presence. Eventually, he was able to remove his arm, then open his eyes. At first, the light was too bright to see clearly into. Then, his eyes adjusted enough that he could make out the shape of a man.

Most men, knowing they were in the presence of God, would have long since recoiled and said, “it is enough Lord.” Jacob was not like most men. Jacob was a man of great tenacity, physical strength, and courage. He mustered every ounce of strength left in his devastated frame, and he did the unthinkable. He inched his arms forward, and scraped his body forward along the rocky soil. He immediately collapsed from exhaustion. The Lord patiently waited. Recovering some fraction of strength, he repeated the process. His injured leg hung powerless by his side. He repeated the process again and again, each time using his last ounce of strength, then collapsing for some time, then pulling from some previously undiscovered reservoir of strength to inch forward again.

Eventually, he came within arm’s length to the Lord. Still prostrate, exhausted beyond measure, he lurched up and grabbed the Lord's feet. Like a boxer at the end of the bout of his life, he clung tightly to the Lord, who permitted him to remain there for a great deal of time. Finally, the Lord spoke and announced that he must go. The Lord blessed Jacob for having wrestled with his glory all night and overcoming. Most men quit long before their prayer yields the presence of the Lord. Of those who don’t, very few indeed would endure God’s glory without pleading with the Lord to stop the experience. Jacob truly was exceptional, and yet he was not exceptional enough for the Lord to tell him his name, a special blessing reserved for a special few.

We may wonder why the account we have is so abbreviated and adulterated. The answer lies in the false traditions of the revisionists. They did not like the idea of a man coming face to face with God. It offended their traditions—traditions created to sooth the pride of those who dismissed the possibility of such a story being literal in order to settle the contradiction between their inflated self-image and lack of personal experience. Our pride can drive easy acceptance of what would otherwise be dismissed as patently absurd. Thankfully, they could only revise the story so much around the two fixed points provided by the name of a physical place (Penuel means “face of God”) and the well-known tradition of Jacob's limp.

This is a literal story, but it is also archetypal in that it is the form of what every man of God experiences. Abraham crawled toward the Lord's glory throughout his life. He was born into an apostate family. He learned the value of God’s word on his own. He left a life of luxury to become a nomad. Almost everyone around him—his father, his brother, his nephew, his wives, his children—failed to appreciate his sacrifice and failed to rise up to his level of love for the Lord. Every day of his life was a test to see if he would trust God in spite of great hardship. The scriptures are filled with similar situations.

Rather than providing a list that would include almost all of scripture, here is one specific example: that of Nephi, son of Helaman. He was the president of his nation. He resigned because he could not turn away from his desire to truly help people in the most direct way—by preaching the gospel. He ranged the entire known world—including among those who were the enemies of his people and had tried to kill them—going on mission after mission (see Helaman 5).

Many mistakenly think that God will not call you on such a mission, to abandon everything you know and serve him full-time away from your home. Maybe not. But if you are to enjoy the same privileges with those who have, you will indeed be required to sacrifice to the degree that they sacrificed, even if in a different format.

Everyone is required to consecrate their lives to the Lord, including consecrating their lives to acquire, assimilate, and disseminate all the truth they can. This is the practical description of “crawling toward the Lord's glory,” as Jacob did. You will probably not do it in one night, as Jacob did. But it will be just as consummate, just as intense, and just as scarring. You will emerge from that experience changed for life, certainly emotionally and probably physically injured in some way for the rest of your life.

You will realize that the consummate effort of acquiring light and truth and packaging it for others requires your full attention. It will settle for no less. You will develop the capacity to focus to the extent needed to mine truth. You will find a space free of any interruption. You will create such a space physically by waking up very early, before anyone else in your house. You will shoulder the burden of chronic lack of sleep, summoning the strength to be true to your character in the way you treat others and not subject to your exhaustion. You will learn to cope with the rude contradiction between your early morning deep dive into the light of God and the heavier, dirtier environment of the people and things of the rest of each day. You will realize and then adjust to the fact that there is no one in your life who can comprehend how you feel. You will realize and adjust to the fact that the distance between you and the people in your life is increasing much faster than the distance between you and God is closing. You will have an uninterrupted series of invitations to slow down, to take a break, to stop, to be normal, to do something you shouldn’t do, to do something less than your best. And you will just keep on going, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.

Having risen to a certain level of light in your daily interactions, you will seek to do more with more people. Because of technology, physically travelling across or outside of the country will probably not be the most effective way to do this. You will leverage the internet to create more interactions with more people. Like Nephi, you will find that this is your principle objective every day, and the normal pursuits of most people will become only a sidebar in your life.

All of God’s light is available to every person.

Why don’t we perceive it, let alone obtain it? Because we don’t trust God sufficiently.

As God reveals more and more of the unknown to your awareness, you must have commensurate trust in God to overcome its effects. Like Peter walking on the water, when his trust was placed in Jesus, he overcame the vast waters beneath him. When he lost that focus on God, he also lost his ability to interact with the water.

As the curtains are pulled back, you will realize to a greater extent than you can imagine that reality is not order with spots of chaos, but a sea of chaos where everything you know is a tiny island of artificial and fleeting order.

There is no limit to the chaos. No matter what you learn, you will always be surprised, and the realization that there is no limit to how awful these new truths can be will and should frighten you. This will shake you to your very foundations until and unless you learn unconditional trust in God.

If you keep yourself fully reconciled to the light God has given you, he will protect you from experiencing more chaos than you are prepared to endure. He will protect you both from too much fire and too much water.

The gospel gives us a framework to deal with the chaos that surrounds us. Faith in God provides adequate strength to endure greater complexity at a faster pace and deeper depth than can be otherwise undertaken. It provides adequate deflation of ego (what you deserve, what you expect, what others owe you) while growing beyond the limits of normality.

Trust in God is the determining factor in how much truth you obtain. Jacob’s ladder is a ladder of trust in God. The more you trust in God, the higher you go.

There is a rung representing every stage of eternal progression. Every righteous desire has associated with it a set of challenges that must be first overcome; ignorance that must be recognized; knowledge that must be obtained; light that must be acquired. Those who obtain salvation (however you define it) do so by conquering all the challenges associated with that level of blessing. They must live that law, which requires a discrete amount of condescension equal to the exaltation that follows.

Here is an eternal truth: God will not force upon anyone here more awareness than was given to Adam and Eve in the garden. God will not force you to climb the ladder. You have to choose to climb.

You will not receive a fullness of knowledge pertaining to our mortal scope unless you ask for it. Even then, it will not come at once, but in packets that grow in intensity as you respond by building your trust in him and reconciling yourself to what is given to you. As you overcome each wave of awareness, he will send you more in the form of something harder. This process is no different for degrees of truth beyond the telestial, but as the degree of trust required grows substantially from one kingdom of glory to the next, the jump takes significantly greater trust, effort, and obedience.

In order to ascend to higher degrees of light, truth, and glory, you must willingly seek and submit to greater pain based only on your trust in God. This was well-understood by some in the past, but it was corrupted over time and resulted in some people inflicting ritual pain on themselves by whipping or other means in an attempt to gain stature with God.

God does not delight in suffering. Suffering outside of the constraints of life does not result in progress or improvement. You need not go in search of pain. If you follow God, it will find you, and it will be far worse than what you can do to yourself. But unlike these artificial ritual beatings, every ounce of it will yield incomparable progress with God.

How does trust in God manifest itself? One way is through your willingness to let go of what you think you have for hope of something better. This covers everything from stopping to minister to another to possessing the radical open-mindedness needed to question a fundamental piece of your perspective.

Another way of measuring your trust in God is to think about how you would react to the ability to relive your past. Most people would like to change some aspect of their past. Few would be willing to relive it. However, if you really trust God, you will see the events of your life as the masterwork of a perfect loving and wise God. If he couldn’t make it better, how could you?

Another metric of your trust in God is whether you have any limitations in your obedience—both in what he does ask you to do, and what he could ask you to do. Immediate belief in anything and everything he teaches you is required. It is also possible.

Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac. If you haven't read that story, or haven't read it recently, consider making it your next reading from the scriptures. Many people call Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac the “Abrahamic sacrifice,” and use it as a type of what God requires from each of us before we can be redeemed from the fall. As important as this experience was, it was not the first time that Abraham was tried (incidentally, tried and tested are not the same thing; it is more correct to think of the Abrahamic sacrifice as the purging of impurities from metal through heat rather than a test you take in school). Abraham was tried as a child when he was assigned to guard his idol-maker father’s wares and chose to destroy them. He was tried when exposed to textual accounts of Shem, Noah, and the fathers and their experiences with God, recognizing his father's religion was inferior and choosing to believe there was something better. He was tried when he was sacrificed by his father, and tried when he had the opportunity to forgive him. He was tried when commanded to leave his home in Ur. He was tried when his father and brother—whom he had rescued through his own merits and mercy—turned away from him. He was tried when his wife was taken by a rich and powerful ruler—twice— for long periods of time without his knowledge of her condition or any likelihood that she would come back to him. He was tried when he took Hagar to wife. He was tried when his marriages were ravaged by the jealousy of Sarah. He was tried when God told him that his beloved son Ishmael would not be his heir. He was tried when Lot, for whom he had sacrificed so much, selfishly chose the better section of land at their parting, not because he cared about the land, but out of sympathy for Lot and what he still lacked in spite of all Abraham's efforts on his behalf. He was tried when he went into battle to rescue Lot. He was tried when he parted ways with Ishmael and Hagar. And finally, he was tried when he was asked to sacrifice Isaac.

The Abrahamic sacrifice isn't one thing. And it isn’t always giving something up. It is a repetitive process where God challenges you to change your paradigm, specifically by changing what you believe. Giving something up or taking something on are only the manifestations of that change in belief. The Abrahamic sacrifice is not a single-point event, it is a process. The goal of that process is to successively increase your trust in God until you are willing to yield completely to him without exception. This is the same as saying that you would do anything he might command, no matter what it is. This is the same as saying there is nothing that you would not do if he commanded it.

God is worthy of your trust. He will never let you down, and without trusting him, your progression will be eternally halted.

Every additional quantity of light and truth will better enable you to successfully interact with reality. The more light you have, the more you can anticipate what others do not see coming. The more light you have, the more capable you are of obtaining material benefits in this world. With every acquisition of additional truth, you have a choice. You can either quietly use that light for your own benefit, or you can use it for the benefit of others. If you choose the former, you will prevent yourself from acquiring more light, but you will be able to avoid a great deal of the suffering endured by others here. If you choose the latter, you will willingly abdicate that life of comfort, exchanging it for the special persecution and pain reserved for those who dare try to help their fellows.

The latter choice is called abasement and condescension. It is the act of willingly abdicating blessings you have earned in order to help others.

The best example of this process is found in the prototype for salvation: the Savior Jesus Christ. What was the condescension of God? In coming from thrones on high, he condescended to a lowly mortal state. He qualified for eternal life, yet chose to live a mortal life, making himself less that he might do more for others.

This is how Paul described it.

Abasement is the means by which we leverage the justice of God to encounter greater blessings of experience, wisdom, light and truth than we otherwise would qualify for.

God’s justice is immutable. But God’s characteristics do not exist in isolation. God’s justice does not exist in a vacuum. Like white light is a composite of all colors, God’s character is a composite of all his attributes. One of these attributes is mercy.

The interplay between justice and mercy turns justice from an attribute that harms us into one that helps us. Those who consistently live in a state where they are reconciled to their best understanding of good can rest assured that they are justified, or that they are free from the penalties of their past conscientious sins and all their sins of ignorance, because God’s mercy paid the price for those sins through the atonement of Christ.

For the justified, God’s justice is a ratchet that imparts to them greater levels of light and truth than they could otherwise obtain.

We typically see God’s justice as a negative attribute—one that can only harm us. But for the righteous, justice is a blessing. For them, the day of judgment is a “glorious day when justice shall be administered unto the righteous.” (2 Nephi 9:46)

For the justified, God’s justice is only positive: it grants all rewards for the good one does and, in conjunction with living reconciled to God, frees them from God’s negative judgment for past sins and present and future ignorance.

Willingly abdicating the blessings they have earned by submitting to suffering for others sanctifies the righteous.

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (Mosiah 3:19)

Counterintuitively, exaltation can only come through abasement; the only way to ascend is to first descend. Each iterative ascension can only be exceeded by first enduring a descent greater than anything you’ve previously endured.

Jesus taught about the progressive exaltation and abasement cycle with a parable.

You are raised commensurate with the degree to which you abased yourself. This happens through the justice of God. Although you can be justified (forgiven, cancelled out debt) through mercy, you can only be sanctified (exalted, increased) through justice. God looks upon your condescension on behalf of those who did not merit it and blesses you by judging you in absence of your sin for which you have been forgiven by and through Christ.

Abasement is not for the faint of heart. The amount of darkness you are willing to walk in will determine the level of light you will acquire. Make no mistakes, this experience is absolutely awful. It is indescribable. This is what the Lord himself went through on the cross. The physical trials—as awful as they were—were not divinely difficult. Many men were crucified, and none of them were counted as a sacrifice to God. The Lord’s experiences were atoning because he unjustly went without connection from the Father during them. The cross was not the first time Jesus had gone without the Father’s contact. It happened at regular intervals, and it was never something he deserved. Instead, he submitted for the benefit of others.

What was it like to be Joseph, son of Jacob? Joseph endured a tremendous amount of toil and affliction in order to come to the point where he was capable of saving the known world—including his family— from starvation. What did it take? Can you imagine being left to die in a pit as a young boy, as punishment for being an obedient son? Can you imagine becoming a slave, even though you are the child of a king? Can you imagine winning over your master through your positive attitude in spite of what has happened to you, only to have him turn against all the good you have done because of a flimsy false accusation? Can you imagine doing it all over again in a dungeon, only to have those whose lives you saved forget you? Who did Joseph turn to during all of this? To which of his peers could he turn and find in them more of the spirit of God than he already had? He had no one to turn to, no one who could understand the burden he carried, and no one who could deliver more light and truth to him. He had to get it all the hard way—by mining it piece by piece from God himself. Every step of the way, he received nothing but contempt from those he helped. Yet he just kept going.

God’s revelation of more and more awareness without reaching the point of peace is like a bank account bearing compound interest that is not deducted from. At any point, the righteous can cash out their chips by saying “Lord, it is enough.” But those who endure the darkness will obtain a greater degree of glory than those who do not. In fact, the accretion of light and truth through unjust duress is much greater than linear.

We are so concerned with temporal blessings. We want companionship. We want comfort. We want money and luxury. Instead of wanting God to pay out your merited blessings every time you endure a test, you ought to grow accustomed to living off of just a bit of the increase—not the principle—of your state with God.

You have to learn to live off of the proceeds of the interest of your abasement. Adopting this perspective will make it so that his blessings in your life start off as much more like a trickle than they could be, but over time that trickle will turn into a flood. Remember that compound interest is an exponential affair, and that the last few steps in the doubling process will make the first half of it relatively imperceptible.

God said: “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33) There is no way of cheating this promise. In order to have it fulfilled, you really do have to place your heart fully on God, not any of the goodies. If you do this, the goodies will flow to you because they are dividends on your investment, not because you seek them. But, because your heart has changed, you will find very little pleasure in these things. Instead, you will see them as gifts from God to bless others. You will also need them, because your body, mind, and spirit will be beaten to a pulp by the time you get there.

Abasement can occur due to factors outside of our control. Job, for instance, did not ask for everything he had to be taken away. However, the most powerful abasement is voluntary.

Jesus was not forced to be born onto this earth. No one made Abraham do what he did. And so it goes with the scriptural examples of righteous people. No one made them do it. It was all voluntary.

Voluntary abasement is the key to the greatest happiness that we can obtain. This is counterintuitive.

It is easy to become jaded. You may reach the point where you have to think for a long, hard time when someone asks you about your happiest moments. The more truth you acquire, the rarer these will be in this life. However, the more truth you acquire, the deeper these happy moments will be, and the more resplendent they will be in the world to come.

Always remember that the whole point of all we suffer is to obtain greater happiness. This is the entire point of everything we do. What seem like deviations from this end are only the required navigation of the unavoidable consequences and constraints of reality.

Happiness is the path of ascent after descent. It comes through abasement for the benefit of others who did not merit it. You have to endure all the things God has to throw at you before you attain the level of happiness that requires having overcome those things.

In order to obtain eternal life, you must descend to a very low point, and prove faithful all the while. This always occurs in steps of everincreasing abasement followed by ever-increasing exaltation. Every step forward requires you descend below your previous lowest point. This is a pattern we see all over scripture.

No matter how foreign external happiness may be in your life here, the more light you have, the greater will be your internal peace and joy. Your hope for others and yourself propels you through a great deal more affliction than most could endure. You may not have regular happy moments. Instead, you have oriented your life toward a fullness of joy, something that does not occur regularly, but is no small event when it does. Suffering compounds. It bears interest. The more you submit to suffer without quitting, the more God can grant you blessings. It compounds more than linearly, meaning for every bit more you are willing to suffer, you get a lot more out of it.

In summary, happiness is not the absence of sorrow, but the accumulation of knowledge earned through sorrow incurred through righteous intercession on others’ behalf.

Chapter 24: Descent

Some incorrectly think that the closer you draw to God, the less you will suffer. Do you think that God does not feel pain? Jesus bled from every pore because of the things he suffered. Enoch saw God weep. God suffers more than any man can. Do you think you will suffer less as you draw closer to him? God has the most joy because he is capable of enduring the greatest suffering. His commandments instill us with the same capability to the degree that we obtain his light and truth by seeking and obeying him in all things.

The purpose of life is to maximize joy. In order to maximize joy, you must acquire the greater light and truth required to contend with the equal and opposite suffering that always co-exists with joy.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the path to maximized joy, not minimized suffering. The question is not whether you will suffer, but how much joy you can have in spite of suffering. Learning truth does not free you from suffering. Instead, it will increase your suffering. What the acquisition of truth changes is not the presence of suffering, but the purpose of suffering.

Those who possess little truth suffer because they are ignorant of cause, effect, and reality. Your actions will change when your understanding of reality changes: your understanding of cause and effect; your understanding of consequences and constraints; your hoped-for outcomes. All of this is driven by your beliefs, and your beliefs will change when you are exposed to something that indicates that your current beliefs are incomplete or incorrect in some way. “Faith comes by hearing” (Romans 10:17), or through expanded observation and understanding. This is always from God, even when it is difficult or painful.

If pleasure unalloyed with pain is not attainable in this life, and if greater suffering accompanies greater happiness, then why bother progressing? One reaction we can have to the chaos is to become jaded—our hearts can wax cold and we can become apathetic. A loss of feeling will deprive us of the deep love of others that is required to keep going through the toughest of trials.

In the face of such a risk, it is important to realize that the gospel is the plan of happiness with respect to the default. It is not the plan of pleasure, because truth produces radical disillusionment, and that doesn't feel good. However, with respect to reality, the gospel is the most direct path to unveiling it. Reality is atrociously harsh. It exists independent of God. God, being aware of it to a greater extent than any of his children, provided a means for them to experience joy in spite of the harshness. To experience the greatest amount of joy, one's desires must be aligned with how things really are. Those who desire what cannot be will be miserable, even if in the short term they encounter pleasure.

If you seek to minimize suffering, you will inadvertently maximize ignorance. You will still end up with a great deal of suffering, just without any of the commensurate joy that would have come had you instead attempted to maximize joy.

Pleasure can come from truth or illusion. Worldly happiness is a fleeting illusion. Pleasure devoid of knowledge is pain whose inevitable bill has not yet come due. This is the fate, for example, of both the wicked who have pleasure for a season and self-proclaimed Christians who stop short of all God has to teach them, satisfied with a childish understanding of the gospel.

The joy of anyone whose suffering is limited is merely a temporary illusion. It will be violently ripped from them in the moment they are exposed to a greater share of reality than they are presently aware. There is no pleasure based on illusion that is ever worth experiencing because, in the end, the cost will always exceed the benefit. “Wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10)

It pays to discover all the truth you can, because doing so is the only way to maximize your joy and minimize the suffering you can avoid.

So much of our suffering is mental anguish. God does not avoid exposing us to pain. But, he does not make it worse through mental anguish. So much of our pain is actually caused by our mental reaction to reality. If reality is according to God’s purposes, and God is perfectly loving and all-knowing, then we must conclude that even the most revolting aspects of reality are actually for our good.

At its root, what is mental or emotional pain? It is nothing more or less than the revelation of a difference between our expectations and reality. Most people avoid this revelation at all costs. They will cut off their closest friends, dive into the deepest delusion, and cause themselves great harm to avoid it. This is highly irrational, and the worst possible behavior in the context of obtaining happiness. Avoidance of a more accurate perception of reality will more effectively prevent your obtaining greater happiness than anything else.

Physical pain is a mechanical reaction, but mental pain is not. Our emotional state is 100% subjective. Negative emotions are mental constructs. You can choose how you interpret anything. You can stop and think intentionally about how you are interpreting something, and you can choose to interpret it differently.

Our perspective determines how we interpret life. The difference between pain and investment is the perceived outcome and purpose.

So much of our pain and suffering in life is the result not of external events outside of our control, but our psychological framing of them. In other words, most suffering isn’t about what happens to you, but how you react to it. Pain—even physical pain—need not translate into the negative spiral known as ego death. It need not metabolize into the internal perception of loss, defeat, or failure. If you think for a moment, you might realize that a great many of the negative experiences you’ve experienced were actually events you chose to interpret as loss, defeat, or failure, even though that was not the only way to interpret them.

For example, if I dream of being a world-class ballerina, and due to overuse, I end up breaking my leg during a performance, I could experience a great feeling of loss at realizing that my dream has been shattered. But I wasn’t yet a world-class ballerina, and you can’t lose what you don’t really have. But, you may say, what if I was already a world-class ballerina? The situation is no different once you realize that we do not yet possess the future!

We have to grapple with reality how it really is, not how we would like it to be. It is good and essential to imagine the world how we would like it to be; this is how we determine our goals. However, we have to interact with the world as it really is. Our daily actions are based on reducing the distance between how the world is and how we would like it to be; they cannot be effective if our starting point is not how the world actually is. The elements of reality that we wish were not true are the richest source of new truth. Embracing these realities causes cognitive dissonance and psychological pain. Recognizing these holes as opportunities to learn is essential. These are moments to reflect and ask what our understanding lacks on these points. This is how we progress.

While expanded awareness can come in the form of a visible manifestation of an angel or an audible voice from heaven, it is available to you all the time through your conscience. You can increase your awareness by leveraging the faculties of observation and reason that God has given you. Heeding your conscience perfectly while actively contemplating and questioning your experiences and seeking improvement always result in greater light and truth.

If you seek solutions to the problems in your current level of truth, you will necessarily seek higher truth. Obtaining the next level of truth will solve the problems of the previous level, but it will also generate new ones. At any level of awareness, there will be problems. The question is not whether there are problems. They are unavoidable. The question is what kind of problems do you want? Most normal people go through their whole lives pinching their eyes shut, trying to ignore what they know is out of accord in their lives. They think that by ignoring what they know is not reconciled to their understanding, they can enjoy what they do like about their lives and avoid what they do not. This, however, never works.

As you progress, you encounter greater peace because you no longer suffer from avoidable consequences, and the unavoidable ones don’t bother you as much because you understand why they have to happen.

As you acquire the additional truth that you need to overcome the problems at your present level of understanding, you will inherit a new set of problems, but these problems will pertain to a higher order of existence.

Eventually, you will overcome all problems pertaining to this world. You will still have problems, but they will not be focused on what can or does happen to you. Instead, they will entail the well-being of others. Those who possess higher truth suffer in behalf of others. Your expanded awareness will include seeing the consequences of the limited perspectives of others, consequences they are blind to. You will suffer by knowing how far below their privileges they are living. You will also suffer through investing your increased capacity in others, knowing full well they will not recognize and in only few cases accept what you offer them. You will also experience a special kind of loneliness which is reserved for those who have excelled their peers in light and truth. The next chapter is dedicated to this topic.

One secret of constant peace is letting go of our perception of what the future holds. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matthew 6:34) This does not mean, however, adopting apathy towards all things future. We must learn to be both tenacious in our seeking to achieve future goals, and completely flexible and subdued towards future outcomes as the future shifts outside of our control. That is the key: laser-like focus on what we can control, and complete submission to what we can’t.

How can we mitigate our sorrows? Once, when Alma the Younger found himself in a particularly hopeless situation, he offered a powerful prayer. The Lord responded to it by blessing him with “strength, that they should suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ.” (Alma 31:38) Note the very important fact that God did not remove his afflictions from him. Rather, he blessed him that his joy in Christ could surpass his sorrow. Disciples of Christ have always and will always have more earthly sorrow than most. However, their joy in Christ surpasses those sorrows.

What is joy in Christ? In part, it is the peace that can only come when you fully trust God. This is a state of rest, because you cease worrying about things outside of your control, and you are empowered to interpret all negative situations as being blessings sent from an all-knowing God.

If you love God and earnestly reconcile your life to your understanding of his will, everything in your life is precisely what is required to direct you towards the greatest happiness. If you really believe that what happens is the will of an all-loving God, then any perceived loss is actually a better aim towards happiness, not a deviation from it.

Attaining awareness and reconciling yourself fully to it is the only way to find more purpose in life: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) Trust in God is the only thing that can provide sufficient hope to cross over the unavoidable suffering that exists here. Hope is only efficacious when it is based in reality. Abraham was successful in his endurance towards the contrarian goal of his long-barren wife bearing a child because he was told by God that it would happen. He “against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.” (Romans 4:18) If God had not told him his wife would have a child, it would have been foolish for him to hope for that in spite of ample observations of her infertility. Our knowledge of God is the source of contrarian hope: “I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.” (Psalm 130:5) Wishing will not suffice.

God allows the righteous to suffer for two reasons. First, their willingness to suffer for the benefit of others allows blessings and opportunities for growth in those who otherwise would have no claims on greater light and truth because of the law of justice. Second, God allows the exact minimum amount of suffering required to reveal to the righteous the ways in which they do not trust God, that they might repent and grow into a fullness of trust. When someone reaches a fullness of trust in God, nothing in mortality remains that would overcome their trust in God, and their calling and election is made sure.

All it takes to reveal your distrust in God is disobedience to the light he has given you so far. It isn’t as easy to know the limits of your trust in God once you are reconciled to the light you have. That requires experience. As you encounter more and more suffering, you will discover the limits of your trust in him. You can rest assured that you do have a limit, because if you did not, you would already enjoy a fullness of his glory.

Of Jesus we read: “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8) What does this actually mean? Jesus already trusted the Father to the degree that he kept the commandments he knew. Through his suffering, he acquired the greater trust in the Father necessary to keep the next commandments as he would receive them. These lessons take a deeper meaning when you replace the concept of commandments as explicit instructions (“thou shalt” or “thou shalt not”) with the act of reconciling your actions, feelings, and desires to the character of God as far as you understand it. Through his suffering, he became better acquainted with the character of God while simultaneously deepening his trust in God, which is the inescapable result of knowing him better.

The key to salvation is trust in God, and in a sense, the entire point of this experience is to provide a place where we can necessarily experience a lack of obvious reasons to trust him. As God inflicts more and more severe situations upon us, we have the chance to develop our trust in him in harder and harder situations, until our trust becomes stronger than anything this world can produce.

The branch of a bush can become its own plant through scraping the bark off of the base of the branch and securing moist soil around it (say, in a cup). This gives a signal to the plant to change the purpose of that portion of the branch from a conduit connecting the plant and branch to a selfsustaining root structure for the branch. In time, the roots grow and the branch can be cut off from the plant and placed on its own. The branch then becomes its own bush.

God scrapes off our bark by placing us in seemingly undesirable situations. Whether internal or external, we are given these situations so that we can sprout roots. He makes weakness strong. He does this by first exposing weakness. When we see our inability to cope with something, it is a signal that God has something to teach us there. If we are sufficiently humble, patient, seeking, earnest, and obedient, he will teach us what we lack to make us strong in that area. We can then take that strength to others who have not had the opportunity or means to learn what the Lord has taught us through suffering, and we can help them learn what we know without their having to pass through the sorrow required to teach us.

What is the role of awareness and good and evil in terms of trust in God? You can say and think that you trust God up to the point where nothing in this world can overcome you, but if you are not actually aware of what this world can produce, you can’t really say or think that—at least it is meaningless when you do. As we become more and more aware of things as they really are, we can see the limits to our trust, and in each instance, decide whether or not we do trust God. This is akin to our applying the light he gives us to sorting what is good and what is evil. Being whipped nearly to death and hung on a cross while seemingly cut off from the Father probably seems like evil, but it was the most righteous thing ever done by anyone on this earth. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus’ prayer was sorting his increased awareness into good and evil: what he would willingly pursue, and what he would not.

One way of quantifying your trust in God is by measuring the amount of suffering you can endure without understanding it before doubting God’s love for you, his wisdom, and his knowledge. The Lord said.

Everyone trusts God when he is sending sunbeams and rainbows. This is the least valuable type of trust. We have to grow to trust him when he sends us rain. This is an apt metaphor, because rain is only bad for those who aren’t aware of its necessity to sustain life. Rainy days are just as needful as sunny days.

Just as we are to pray for those who hurt us, and just as our prayers are of limited charity when we pray for those who love us, we are to trust God, especially when his will causes our suffering.

Perfect trust is when you can’t enumerate anything that would cause yourself to doubt God.

A wise man once wrote, “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” (Ecclesiastes 1:18) If Solomon had more knowledge than his peers, he would be equipped to judge whether or not he also had more sorrow. Why do these two things go together?

There is opposition in all things. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness is like pulling back the pendulum on a grandfather clock. When you pull back the pendulum to the right, you know that it will swing to the left to equal displacement. If you want greater righteousness, you willingly submit yourself to God for greater affliction. The more you want, the more you will encounter what you don’t.

When Jacob was shown the ladder of ascent and descent in a dream, it was marvelous to behold. But hearing about or seeing this is quite different than experiencing it. He was shown what would happen from a very different perspective than those actually experiencing the ladder would describe it. This journey is not one of angelic floating through the air. Jacob crawled on his face toward God, figuratively, over twenty odd years of suffering for the benefit of others, and, literally, in an excruciating night of approaching God.

You can’t increase in knowledge without experience, and you can’t have experience without experiencing pain.

Every rung in Jacob’s ladder is another swing of the pendulum—but this time the arm is longer and the path wider than the last. It supplies greater joy and knowledge at the cost of greater suffering and pain.

Challenge increases the contrast between darkness and light. It is the only thing that has a hope of helping the unaware become aware of God’s voice and move towards it. When God’s light shines in the darkness of our hearts—which it does unceasingly—we recognize it to varying degrees. Those who do not recognize it or who recognize only very little of it are well served by a loving God to go through tremendous affliction. When the darkness increases, the light is more obvious, like a diamond on velvet versus held up to the daylight.

There are two secrets of happiness. The first, that everyone seems to realize, is that to get more happiness, you have to seek more happiness. The second, that no one seems to realize, is that to get more happiness, you have to learn to respond better to and even enjoy the opposition to happiness. The way you do this is through acquiring and reconciling yourself to knowledge—knowledge of how things really are.

We can change the way we frame what we now consider to be negative. We can change the way we react to it. The illusion is that pain is always negative. It is a silly illusion, and surprisingly common, because we encounter things almost daily that we frame as positive, even though they cause pain. Exercising, having kids, eating cake, drinking alcohol, sitting in a car, all of these things are painful experiences. Yet we regard them as positive.

Life is not meant to be and cannot be a constant series of objectively beautiful moments. Instead, it is like a road trip through Montana: an almost constant series of objectively bland moments, punctuated with scenes of tremendous beauty. Most people don't do anything close to what they could do to multiply those beautiful moments. But even if you do, you are still going to end up in a place where the majority of your life is things other than those. If you want more happiness out of life, you have to develop a perspective that allows you to derive value from what others do not appreciate—those much more common moments that are not exciting, not what you would have picked, and maybe even painful. If you make the effort, you can learn things about life that make you appreciate the normally undesirable. You still won't like it as much as those rare special times, but because these other times are so numerous, just learning to appreciate them a little more will mean you get a lot more happiness out of life compared to those who don’t appreciate them at all.

One way to interpret disagreeable experiences is to recognize that they are exactly what is needed to teach you precisely what is necessary for you to enjoy the next level of reality. Every disagreeable experience is an invitation from God, showing you that he knows you are ready to qualify for the next level of joy. Maintaining your godly character through the experience will require new knowledge from God—tools that you currently lack, but that are required to contend with greater proportions of reality. This process is how you proceed to greater joy.

It is important to understand that a step towards that life isn’t the same as instantly receiving an increment of more joy. Degrees of happiness don’t seem to be continuous, like awareness is. You accumulate awareness bit by bit. While the bits can be large or small, there seem to be no jumps. Our experience with God and our joy seem to be discrete. They seem to stay at one level for what seems like a long time, then jump ahead radically, all at once. When scriptural personalities have collapsed in a state of joy, it is not from an incremental experience. It hit them all at once. When God appears to you, it is all at once.

Were you to be in God’s presence in a reconciled state, you would marvel at the love you feel. It is indescribable. And yet, you may be surprised to discover that you feel at least as close to him while suffering for others here and now than you do in his literal presence.

Suffering is not an arbitrary punishment from a capricious God. God is not capricious. He is bound by law. He is precisely aware of the degree of light and truth we need to overcome all challenges related to this life, and his gospel consists of everything we need to know to attain that light and truth. Whenever we suffer, it is the consequence of beliefs based on a lack of light and truth—the natural consequence of possessing less light and truth than needed to overcome the world. In spite of how hard it is to see it so, we ought to recognize our suffering as a gift from an immeasurably loving and perfectly wise God. It is a gift in at least two ways. First, no matter how intense our suffering, it is indescribably less than we would endure were we made aware of a full awareness of all truth pertaining to our sphere. Were he to reveal the fullness of awareness, it would literally be hell to those who had not yet built up an awareness of it.

Second, the granting of a slight exposure to some of the natural consequences of our current limited beliefs creates an environment where we can be much more capable and motivated to seek, consider, and adopt higher order light and truth. Suffering helps our eyes see the paths to greater light and truth. Paths that lead to greater light and truth are like diamonds— they aren’t nearly as visible in the daylight as they are contrasted on dark velvet. It is also much less likely that we see the need to change in a setting where we are artificially shielded from the consequences of our lack of limited understanding of reality through the grace of God. You may ask if God is able to shield us from those consequences now, why can’t he continue to do so later? God’s grace can withhold the consequences of our lack of knowledge, but the consequences withheld must include both the negative and the positive. The only way one can acquire the joy that God has is by also acquiring the awareness he has, and that awareness requires one to overcome the negative consequences through the acquisition and application of law—an advanced understanding of good and evil. There is no other way.

The amount of light you acquire in this life is determined by how far you are willing to walk into the darkness. The more darkness you are willing to abide in, the further God can take you. This is because God teaches you truth by a) exposing you to chaos, b) differentiating the chaos, c) inviting you to choose to accept the good and turn away the evil in what you have ordered and defined.

If you turn your whole heart to God, he will subject you to situations that will feel and act like a crucible. They will burn out all your impurities if you trust God enough to allow him to leave you there until it is complete. Too many people ask to be taken out of the fire before their dross is purged. They want to stay at their current level of trust in God, and don’t want to know what trust they yet lack.

As you endure the increasing light, you will have everything ripped from your heart until the only thing that remains is God. That is sanctification. Through this abasement, you become exalted. It is the only way. It is how you gain everything by losing everything. It is how you lose yourself by finding yourself. Your awareness increases, your old principles fail to order the new chaos, and you must discover and assimilate new light and truth to revise or replace them with something greater.

Before the trials we read of in the Bible narrative, Job had overcome all the chaos he knew of in life. Exposed to normal situations, he had deciphered God’s will and followed it. He had derived the principles of God’s will that governed the situations he encountered, and he lived them faithfully. As a result, he had accumulated wealth, wisdom, the respect of his peers, and a measure of happiness. Yet, Job’s life was not perfect. He had wild and disobedient children, and a wife of limited understanding, as evidenced in the former case by his frequent intercessory prayers for his children’s foibles, and in the latter case by his wife’s reaction to his imminent trials. When Satan is first authorized to test Job, Job responds well. His statement is positive, but also betrays ignorance of God’s character. He states that it seems fair to endure some storms, when God has been so gracious to have blessed him so much to that point. Job was considering God’s trait of justice, but justice was not God’s motivation in allowing his testing. God’s love was the motivating factor, as it always is in allowing challenges to arise in the lives of those that love him. God exposes us to situations that are beyond our understanding and seemingly beyond our capacity in order to teach us more about the way things work—about good and evil. This is the only way we can attain a higher level of happiness than we presently occupy. Job should have reacted by saying that any situation that comes to the faithful is exactly what is needed—nothing more and nothing less—in order to teach them what is needed to be saved. Job should have rejoiced in his affliction, taking it as a sign that God loves him and trusts Job enough to teach him more about himself. Instead, his confidence in God erodes as the trials gain in intensity, until his faith reduces to complaints about the seeming unfairness of the situation. Had Job known God’s character better, he would have rejoiced in any seeming injustice, knowing that temporary injustice is the vehicle used by a loving God to bring about greater dispensations of knowledge and happiness than can be had in our previous equilibrium state.

Life is short. This life is the time we have to develop greater trust in God. There are no vacations here. There are no times we can afford to take off.

John wrote.

It is not enough for God to tell us that the things of this world are of limited utility. He must show us. The more we seek light and truth, the more he can. The more understanding a person acquires in this world, the more he will see the fragility and fleetingness of the things this world has to offer. They will suffer wave after wave of disappointment. The things they work harder than most to obtain will, once obtained, turn to dust in their hands. They will be tempted to think, “what is the point of any of this?”

A more mature perspective follows: What was actually desired in the first place? Was it really what was acquired? Or was the disappointment instead because a greater perspective of things as they really are showed that what was being pursued cannot provide what was sought? With every wave of disappointment, the person believes more and more that God is the only source of what he seeks. Everything else only contributes to that goal as far as it is a part of the path that God has provided to reach him.

We all come to this life with whatever character and desire for light and truth we acquired before this life. During this life, we must rebuild the awareness and understanding of good and evil that we attained before this life. If we surpass it, we will end this life with more character and desire for light and truth than we came with.

The most endowed intelligences arrive on this earth without a realization of how different they are to those around them. They suffer much more than those around them, because they project their advanced character and desire for good onto those around them and then struggle to understand why they are consistently assaulted by the behavior and failure of others. After sufficient repeats of the frustration cycle, they may finally come to the point where they realize that what they seek—someone or some environment that reflects or at least absorbs the light that they emit—is not the source of their frustration. Instead, it is in whom they are seeking it, as it is not to be found in this world. Instead, they have to come to the point where they realize the kingdom of heaven is within, that what they seek can only be found in God, and that they emanate light not for the reflection or absorption of it, but because it is who they are. They do it not for what they get back, but because they can’t help it. They don’t expect anyone to desire or appreciate the light they have acquired, but they give it freely anyway because that is what God does and they want to be with him and like he is.

There are two ways God can relieve a trial. The first is by taking it away. For some reason, this is what Christians seem to pray for. The other way is to learn what you lack that makes the present situation a trial, and by doing so, overcome it. How can you know which relief you encountered? You imagine going through a similar trial again, and you ask yourself if it would be as difficult. When you overcome something, you can easily do it again.

Having a trial taken away is like going through all the trouble of dieting without losing weight. Trials are not meant to be an arbitrary test of our trust in God. Rather, they are meant to be a vehicle through which we recognize and obtain something we previously lacked. The goal in this life is to get to the point where you can face any possible situation in this world without losing any trust in God and without any degrading of your character. To maintain godly character and perfect faith in the face of any situation encountered in this world is to overcome all things. It is required for (and is the definition of) salvation. To avoid trials is to avoid salvation.

Job distrusted God, asking him why he was punishing him. God wasn’t punishing Job. He was blessing him! Job should have said, “Lord, I trust in your judgment, and I rejoice in these trials. They feel like more than I can bear, but I know you love me more than I comprehend, and that I’ve been perfectly faithful to you, so I know that anything you ordain in my life is for my benefit, and according to your wisdom. I submit completely to your will in this and all things, and I thank you for loving me enough to subject me to what initially hurts in order to help me progress. Please teach me what I lack, that I might overcome this and all things.”

In the end, God blessed Job with more than he had before. He learned from what he had gone through, but he didn’t learn everything he could have. He drew a line in the sand before he had learned everything the trial offered him, saying “this is all I’d like to deal with, Lord. I’m done. I quit.” It is very rare indeed to find someone who will not quit, who trusts God, who will not draw a line in the sand and say, “I will go no further, Lord.

This is the limit of the trust I have for you.” The person who refuses to quit, whose trust in God is unshakable, will progress straight to salvation. It doesn’t matter where they start, or how long it takes, but they will obtain eternal life as sure as the sun rises.

Don’t ever quit. Consider Joseph of Egypt. Imagine how he felt, having done the right thing in his young life, and still ending up a slave. He didn’t complain that we know of. He didn’t make an ordeal of it. Why not? He trusted God. Even in those bleak circumstances, he clung to the belief that God loved him and was just. This gave him the perspective he needed to do his best to live according to the light he had, even as a slave. Then God blessed him to lose that position and he ended up a prisoner. He just kept living the light he had. Then God freed him from the prison and made him ruler of Egypt.

With every character in the scriptures, you can study the events of their lives and identify times when, through abasing themselves and enduring well what God sent them, they were able to acquire more truth, overcome more darkness, and become a brighter light by becoming capable of reflecting more of God’s glory through their character.

God's influence can systematically replace our character with his, but only if we provide the right environment. Like fossilization, it takes a great deal of pressure (in the form of trials) and it requires purging our harmful previous desires, behaviors, and nature (in the form of repentance). Fossils are not created just from burying bones. Fossils are very rare. Bones are not. Buried bones almost always just rot. What makes a fossil? Incredible pressure, but this is not all. Recently, scientists were able to simulate fossilization, but their experiments failed until they realized that all fossils are found in sedimentary rock, whose porous nature allows volatile degradation materials to escape the body.

When we don’t quit, God compounds our blessings. He compounds what he can teach us and what blessings we can receive. Joseph did not cash in his chips, and the blessings kept compounding. We cash out our chips when we tell God we have had enough or when we show him the same by not living with gusto and fervor in whatever situation he’s placed us.

We are saved by knowledge, so salvation requires us to get to the point where God can reveal any and all things to us—at least much more than he currently does. Life is, most simply, the experiences necessary to reveal our lack of trust in God. Stress, anxiety, and depression are signals indicating places where we need to grow our trust in God.

The Lord said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27) What is it? It is having total peace in total chaos because you trust God. Normal reactions are to lose your mind when a piece of your order is revealed to be wrong, because it brings the whole into question.

God’s love does not hide us from reality. It exposes us to reality.

The truth is progressive. The more you know of it, the more you will see the things inside of you that are not ideal. If you embrace the opportunity to part with what doesn't work, you will find more and better. Everything that is replaced brings you closer to your ideal self: more secure in God; in possession of greater peace; more resilient to the unavoidable difficulties of reality.

When you are consumed by love, you stand in the fire in peace. You can sleep on a boat in the midst of a terrible storm, as Jesus did. You can feel consummate joy while being stoned to death, as Stephen did. You can preach the gospel while being burned to death, as Abinadi did.

Embrace truth. Run towards it. Get excited about it. A warrior runs toward the sound of battle, because he knows that is where he is meant to be. Why are you running away from the battle? The battle is why you were born. It is why you are here. The battle calls you. Run to the sound of it.

Don't try to escape from reality. Like the pressures of deep water to the pearl diver, it is a sign you are in the right place, doing what you are meant to do.

Don't try to avoid pain. If you are reconciled to God, pain is the revelation of what you lack.

Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. Everyone wants to be a beast until it’s time to do what beasts do. Embrace the vision of who you really are when it matters the most, when you are neck-deep in pressure and the only way out is through. True happiness is found only in facing and embracing all the undesirable things in this world! You do not receive happiness in the world to come in the same way people try to find it here. It isn’t that the undesirable things are taken away, it is that you have transcended them.

Others need you to do what you were born to do. Without you, they won’t make it.

Chapter 25: Sacred Loneliness

This chapter is dedicated to the light-bearers. It will not be relevant to most people, but to those to whom it applies, it will provide bittersweet comfort in knowing that, while their path is lonely, they are not alone.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.