Someone wrote me the following:
"Is part of getting into the presence of God, that a person overcome a big physical test? Was there one significant test you passed that cracked the heavens for you?"
One good place to look for this is "The Glory of God is Intelligence."
Here is a snippet from page 41:
<begin quote>
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.
<end quote>
Here is a re-rendering for a future book:
<begin quote>
Every kingdom is defined by an acceptable range across many properties. There is a range of trust in God. There is a range of intensity. There is a range of sacrifice. There is a range of understanding and awareness. All of these qualities are wrapped in the term “law.”
Those who live the minimum law can remain—or abide—in the kingdom. To “abide a law” is to act completely in accordance with the minimal level of light and truth corresponding to that kingdom.
Those who surpass the upper limit qualify for a higher kingdom, and those who fall below the lower limit descend to a lower kingdom.
Kingdom membership exists at quantum levels (like whole numbers), while the properties of those kingdoms (trust in God, intensity, etc.) are continuous (like decimal numbers). Membership in kingdoms can be better understood by considering how 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.
<end quote>
The gist:
You are always in God's presence. What changes is your proximity to him and your awareness of it.
Traversing the distance to God will feel like both a continuous and discrete process. If the path were monkey bars, there will be times that feel like you are moving one by one in a smooth process, and times that feel like you are a standstill and the only way forward is to fling your whole body into what lies ahead without intermediary small steps.
One day, you will realize that you are willing to give everything you know of in exchange for everything you know about God. That seems like a big one-time decision, and it is when you first make it. But it is arrived at through a continuous process of making larger and larger sacrifices, and is also a continuous process itself, because what you understand as "everything you know of" (and the outcome of "everything you know about God") will expand as you do so.
Before I met the Lord for the first time, I explicitly and sincerely declared that I would give everything to know him. And I did give up everything to know him. And I do continuously give up everything to know him more. Most of what people refer to as the gospel is just a contrived attempt to avoid full sacrifice to God, and it never works, and it can never work.
Everything that God is requires the sacrifice of everything we are. If you have the slightest clue of how he is, it's an easy trade. Often, our hesitation consists of as much over-appraisal of how good we are as it does under-appraisal of how good he is, which is why it is as vital to teach people how they actually are as it is to teach them how God is.
Everything God has requires the sacrifice of everything we have. If you have the slightest clue of what he has, it's an easy trade. Often, our hesitation consists of as much over-appraisal of how much we actually have that is real and can endure as it does under-appraisal of he actually has that is real and can endure, which is why it is as vital to teach people what is real and endures as it is to teach them the reality and endurance of what God has.
As you increase your continuous sacrifice and accept the discrete sacrifices presented to you from time to time, you will find yourself closing the distance between you and God in continuous ways through your overall familiarity and intimacy with him and in discrete ways through increasingly meaningful and powerful explicit experiences with him.
It is interesting that both in understanding of the process and in desire for the outcomes, so many people focus on the discrete events. I have had discrete events with the Lord that I would not trade for anything I've ever heard (or read) from others. And I would trade all of those in a heartbeat for what he has given me access to with him at all times and in all places. The pinnacle of what God offers us is not the explicit experiences it provides us with him. It is to have a fullness of his presence with us always.
And here I will reveal to a secret so great that it carries with it the greatest possible cost to learn and be able to sincerely say:
And here I will reveal to a secret so great that it carries with it the greatest possible cost to learn and be able to sincerely say:
If what you receive from the Lord consists in his visits to you, what you receive from him will always be limited to when he visits you or not. While many say that they would do anything even to have the Lord visit them once, their lives prove that they do not actually believe what they so freely say. However, they are correct in thinking that just one visit from the Lord would be worth any cost. But one visit is not enough. Perhaps your reason for failing to receive one visit from the Lord is connected to not understanding how that is limited in value, and what lies beyond it in value. A single visit from the Lord, or even many, is not the pinnacle of why we are here. We were created for so much more than this.
We are created in the image of God. Our design affords much more than the potential to visit with God. We are designed with the potential to become like him. We are his children, and we are meant to be his heirs. And the title of kings and queens in God's kingdom is no arbitrary honorarium. Thrones come through the character qualities of the holder, and cannot be transferred in any other way, which is why the Lord said: "I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images." (Isaiah 42:8)
We are created in the image of God. Our design affords much more than the potential to visit with God. We are designed with the potential to become like him. We are his children, and we are meant to be his heirs. And the title of kings and queens in God's kingdom is no arbitrary honorarium. Thrones come through the character qualities of the holder, and cannot be transferred in any other way, which is why the Lord said: "I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images." (Isaiah 42:8)
If what you receive from the Lord consists of who you have become, because of his word / name / character which he has imparted to you, then nothing outside of your own choice to turn away from what he would do in your place can remove his presence from you.
The Lord said:
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. (John 14)
The Lord will reveal himself to you by visiting you if you are true and faithful to all you presently know and what he will teach you as you remain this way. But if you react to what he shows you of himself by becoming that way yourself, you will have his presence with you at all times and in all places, because you will be like him. Then, if you were ever placed in the same circumstances he was, when the Father's presence was veiled from him in the greatest possible darkness, you will still see his face, because you will see his light shining in the darkness--not from an external source--but from within you. This is the full meaning and cost of seeing the light that shines in the dark.
The Lord will reveal himself to you by visiting you if you are true and faithful to all you presently know and what he will teach you as you remain this way. But if you react to what he shows you of himself by becoming that way yourself, you will have his presence with you at all times and in all places, because you will be like him. Then, if you were ever placed in the same circumstances he was, when the Father's presence was veiled from him in the greatest possible darkness, you will still see his face, because you will see his light shining in the darkness--not from an external source--but from within you. This is the full meaning and cost of seeing the light that shines in the dark.
The Lord wants you to come into his presence, but more than that, he wants you to become his presence.
This is the fullness of the gospel.
Interestingly, you can only know him fully as you become more like him. In becoming more like him, you have his presence with you continually, but it is also the only way to truly know him when you literally stand before him.
It may seem foolish to openly testify of the bounties of the end of the path to those who are unwilling even to enter into the gate. Paul spoke of how when he was a child, he spoke of childish things. There are many children among us. Most are children in the sense of being spiritually underdeveloped, unwilling to do what is most abundantly justified, unwilling even to live according to what they know and believe is right. These will no doubt be harmed by the sharing of such truths in such clarity. But some few are the children of the Most High--those who were reserved for this, the end of times. These little ones are (or will be) the Lord's lambs, following him wherever he goes. And they must be fed. They will be saved, even by fire, and if it so be that the whole world burn up to make it so, it will be done. The Lord hath decreed that his tree will be nourished and his branches grafted in, and his word will be fulfilled.
4 I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
5 They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
8 O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
9 O fear the Lord, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that fear him.
10 The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.
11 Come, ye children, hearken unto me: I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good? (Psalm 16)