Since the dawn of time, mankind has sought to lengthen his life and be happy while doing it. The hard fact is no one wants to die... we want to live, and live well. We want to be fulfilled, have friends, have influence, be successful, and do all of that for a long, long time.
Pretty simple and it's never changed. What people want out of life is essentially universal.
Reality shows us long life and happiness aren't exactly handed out at the door as we come in - we don't get a free pass to these things. On the contrary, life seems filled with an abundance of disease and accidents - the very things that shorten life or at least keep us unhappy. So man is forever searching for a secret to long life and happiness because it is just so hard to achieve and life appears to be filled with everything but happiness and life is so quickly shortened.
The Bible tells us there is a secret to achieving long life and happiness. It tells us, however, that the achieving of such are not found by searching for them, but by searching for something else:
"How blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding. For her profit is better than the profit of silver and her gain better than fine gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire compares with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her, and happy are all who hold her fast." Proverbs 3:13-18
Ever noticed how much of life is paradoxical? Here we can see it plainly, a paradox of the highest order. What seems to be self evident is actually not true, and this is why most people believe that to find long life and happiness you must search for them. Pursue them. Grasp them. Relentlessly hunt them down until they are found.
This approach, however, is guaranteed failure, 100 percent of the time. Happiness or longevity or any combination of them is NEVER achieved by pursuit of those things. So many people live in ongoing, pointless frustration, never arriving at the place they forever run to because the chasing of happiness is like a thirst-racked traveller dashing toward an oasis in the desert - it seems so attainable but when he arrives, or thinks he arrives... the water is not there, nor ever was. It is a mirage.
Happiness and a long life to enjoy it are found by the pursuit of something quite different. The Bible tells us it is a condition of the mind. It is wisdom. It is understanding. The attaining of wisdom and understanding leads to the attaining of happiness, and not the other way around.
We can accurately call the finding of happiness and long life a secret. Why? Because so few ever find it. What is pursued by all of the world is only found by a handful of people who actually know and believe what the Scripture tells us about it. Yes, it's been in print for centuries but free information doesn't lead people to truth. The acting on truth leads people to truth.
Money, health, friends, and fulfillment -all things by which people define happiness. They are pursued daily, tirelessly, by billions. Searchers on a fruitless pursuit of a vanishing rainbow that leads to a pot of fool's gold. But it doesn't have to be this way.
The Word of God abounds with truth and encouragement, and is a guiding light to those who seek fulfillment. If people would open their eyes and ears to what God has told us thousands of years ago, they would stop the endless pursuit of nothing and start achieving real peace and happiness. They would find unending joy and fulfillment, tranquility throughout life.
And then, it wouldn't be a secret anymore :-)
RS Kniep is a strong believer in the power of wisdom to affect positive results in people's lives. He believes all genuine wisdom, in its various forms, comes from God, as found in His Word, the Holy Bible.
As an earnest seeker of wisdom, RS Kniep has studied both the Bible and competing views of wisdom for nearly 25 years. His wisdom writings focus on the biblical books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes.