Perhaps one of the greatest of the Bible preachers and teachers of the past generation, Vance Havner, once said, "The business of a doctor is not to make sick people happy , but to make them well. When they are well, they should be happy.
Christ came to earth not primarily to make everybody happy, but to save us from our sins. When we have been healed , we shall be happy. Moreover, getting sick people to act as if they were well does not cure them of their infirmity. We must deal with the trouble (sin) itself."
This philosophy of life is hard to find and even harder to place into practice in our day and time. We seem to feel that happiness is the great pursuit of mankind. But are somewhat like the dog chasing his tail in our perpetual quest for it. We seem to spin around in endless circles seeking it. I often think of this when I observe the things people are involved in and the places they seem to go in search of happiness.
Have you ever noticed that those who live in the mountains or outback seem to think happiness lies along the coast and beaches of this great land? Or that those who live along the beautiful coast line seem to feel that happiness must lie over the horizon in the mountains or outback? Or that those who live in the north seem to think the geography of happiness lies southward and those in the east think it lies westward and vice versa? And that during holidays all these people meet each other on congested highways in a frantic scramble to squeeze the last ounce of happiness out of each precious moment? Or is it that everyone feels that variety is truly the only spice of life?
But Biblical philosophers such as Vance Havner are not the only ones who see the truth that the geography of happiness has a vertical rather than a horizontal dimension. Most psychologists and counsellors of any note and worth now seem to agree that the best therapy man can receive is to experience freedom from guilt (sin) and a sense of oneness and rightness with His Creator.
The fountain of happiness does not flow from some mystical and magical garden to be found at the end of a ceaseless earthly quest, but from the very throne of God in the garden of God. In spite of all those who would deride and decry the quaint idea, the paradise lost in the garden must truly be found by each individual before happiness can flow in life, both in the here and now and the then and there. This idea is not just someone's wistful vision of pie in the sky by and by, but the only basis for true and lasting happiness. And all those who say they are not looking for that pie in the sky by and by, but will grab theirs right now, seem to be doomed to continue their sad, senseless and ceaseless quest. - Pastor John White
