“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. (Smith, The Glory of God is Intelligence, p. 275)

“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 [all things] through the acquisition and application of law, [to include] 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.” (Smith, The Glory of God is Intelligence, p. 277)

The reality is that most of what is true is not nice, it is not flattering, and it does not make us feel good learning about it. Most of reality is very hard, cruel, and unyielding. But by yielding our hearts and minds to God, venturing into the chaos, being enlivened by truth, and finding purpose in God’s purposes, we can sort the light from the darkness, and we can find joy even in the midst of all our pain. Indeed, it is our pain that makes our joy so great because we appreciate it so much more by contrast.