Imagine you’re sitting on your couch, controller in hand, playing Super Mario Bros.
*It’s a metaphor. Stay with me.*
You want to win this game. You are determined to make it to the very end. Eight different worlds, containing four levels each, will need to be conquered.
However, you’re a novice game player. You’re not sure what the rules are, or what all of the buttons do. You are unfamiliar with the terrain and you’re not even sure what the objective is. You persist, but each time you figure out the level and move up, you’re faced with another set of problems to puzzle through.
As you work your way through the game, sometimes you can beat a level in only a couple of tries. Other levels seem to be completely unwinnable and you want to throw your controller at the TV and give up. But you know that getting to the end will be worth it, so you keep going.
Luckily this game gives you endless chances to progress. It’s not as if you have to sit down and win it all in one shot because the game will self destruct after one attempt. You’ve got time. An eternity of it, in fact.
What if one of those levels was called Telestial. And what if we were trying to win that level right now?
Have you ever considered the idea of multiple mortal probations? Perhaps this life isn’t the only chance we get to progress toward godhood. First, let me say that there’s a good chance my understanding of this subject is flawed, and it is certainly incomplete, but I hope you’ll at least join me in pondering.
Think about it for a minute. We know that God is a just God. He is no respecter of persons. He doesn’t play favorites.
1 Nephi 10:18 For he is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and the way is prepared for all men from the foundation of the world, if it so be that they repent and come unto him.
I have a friend who had a faith crisis several years ago. She looked around at the world where we live. She saw the way she lived—what she was taught, how she was raised—and she compared it to everyone else out there. Those who lived in squalor during the dark ages, those who have never heard the name of Christ or considered the concept of life beyond this one, those who sat at the feet of Abraham, Moses, or King Benjamin, those who saw Christ for themselves, those who live in darkness their entire lives. She thought of the disparity of all these situations and simply could not fathom a just and loving God who would put us all in such disparate circumstances and then expect us all to be able to achieve the same level of glory. Calling it unfair would be putting it mildly.
For a long time though, I didn’t realize that it could be any other way. I just figured that the Lord would figure it out and make it fair in the end, even though logically I couldn’t imagine how that was possible. It felt like we were all expected to turn on that all important game of Super Mario Bros and get every level exactly right with only one try. A few would be able to do it by sheer luck, but the rest of us would be doomed—damned even.
So what if this isn’t our only chance?
The course of the Lord is one eternal round.
What is an eternal round?
Perhaps an eternal round includes:
*A war in heaven. We are given the choice to accept Father’s plan
*The creation of man and woman on a world
*The lives and experiences of all of their children through thousands of years
*The coming of a savior to atone for all of their sins
*Multiple losses and restorations of the Lord’s gospel as truth is corrupted and then reclaimed
*The coming of the savior in judgment
*The Lord’s millennial reign
*The unleashing of Satan and a final battle to test the souls of men. We will choose God or Satan.
At the end of each eternal round/creation cycle/mortal probation, the Lord determines how much we have grown and progressed and decides whether we need another shot at this level, or whether we have learned enough to move on to the next level.
Every cycle has the same objective—to move people closer to godhood. These mortal probations provide experience, a chance to be outside of the Lord’s presence so that we can utilize our agency and show Him what we will choose.
What if we compared this chance to come down to earth (or this eternal round) with an attempt to complete a level of a video game?
It sounds so silly, I know, but what if that’s what it’s like? There are those of us here on the earth who are complete novices. We jump when we’re supposed to duck, we can’t figure out how to get the coins. We died within the first quarter of the level. At the same time, there are others who have been playing this game for a while. They’ve got a good handle on the terrain and they know where the pitfalls are. They’re going to make it farther, maybe even get to the end.
The good news is that all of us get to try again. Those who completed this level get to move on to the terrestrial level and give that a go. Those who didn’t make it here get another attempt, and this time they’ve learned a few things and will be better equipped to make it farther next time.
“The glory of God is intelligence or in other words, light and truth.” We’re here to gather glory, little by little, to gain as much light and truth as we can. It’s okay that some of us fall in the first hole we try to jump and others make it more than halfway to the end, because we’re all learning. All experience will be for our good. Some will learn faster than others, some will master mercy but not grace, others might master meekness but not love unfeigned. Some will have to overcome the pride of abundance and privilege, and others will have to overcome the gut wrenching plight of poverty and abuse. Whatever we do learn, we take with us on the next eternal round. Just keep in mind we’ll have to wait for the next creation cycle, so we really should learn as much as we can while we’ve got this body and this agency, but at least this won’t be the end of our progress. This life is not hopeless. God never has been, nor ever will be, hopeless.
This concept is filled with hope and mercy. The first time I considered it, it was a light bulb moment. It fit into the cracks of my understanding and brought the picture into focus. Yes, God is just. Yes, God it loving. Yes, God is patient.
I had always wondered how Christ was able to be who He is. How could He come down to this fallen world and be sinless? How is that possible if He was just a new unexperienced spirit like the rest of us?
It’s not possible. The reason that Christ was able to be our savior is because he’s been through all the levels. He knows the terrain, he’s developed all of the essential skills to become like God. That why he was able to condescend below all things (below all of the levels of glory that he had attained) and come to this earth as a worthy savior. And if WE expect to become like God (and we do) then we have to take the same path and progress in the same way.
In Abraham 3:22-24 “Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell.”
If we believe that we were all brand new little spirits before we came to this earth, then those verses make no sense. Did God arbitrarily create some spirits to be great and some not? Did he decide that some brand new spirits who had never had to utilize their agency while out of the presence of God were somehow fit to rule over others? And what about the one who stood among them “like unto God.” How in the world did that spirit manage that?
The only logical conclusion that I have been able to come up with is that we weren’t new unexperienced spirits. We had done this before—twice, ten times, a thousand—regardless of the number of attempts we’ve made, I have to believe that we have had the opportunity to live mortal lives before. That is why God can point to some and say “these are noble” and point to another and say “this one is like unto God.” Because He’s been with us through many rounds and he’s seen what we’re capable of.
In the Lectures on Faith, Joseph taught that Christ is the prototype of the saved man. “Where is the saved being? We conclude as to the answer of this question, there will be no dispute among those who believe the bible, that it is Christ: all will agree in this that he is the prototype or standard of salvation…and if he were any thing different from what he is he would not be saved; for his salvation depends on his being precisely what he is and nothing else.”
This idea of multiple mortal probations is something I’ve started jokingly referring to as “leveling up” (hence this metaphor). I really hope that in this lifetime I can level up because I don’t want to be stuck in a crappy telestial life again. This life we’re living, this level that we are at, is hard. We are so far from where God is. The good news is that the farther we are from God, the greater the chance for progression. If we seek truth and take hold of it in this life, and then DO what the Lord requires, then perhaps when it comes time for the next round, the Lord will be able to view us as noble, as one of the servants that can be trusted to help bring others to salvation.
That should be our goal: to be a trusted servant of God, to be so good at hearing and HEEDING the voice of the Lord, that he can trust us to do his will in all things.