For Reading and Meditation:
Mark 6:45-51
Yesterday we said that we all want to be happy - and rightly so. This is a deep-rooted instinct which God has built into us. But happiness is not something you make but something you receive. You cannot make happiness any more than you can make love. You can express love but you cannot make love. So it is with happiness. You cannot make it. She is a coquette: follow her and she eludes you; turn from her and interest yourself in something or someone else and you may win her. The Scriptures and psychology are at one here, and the experience of millions confirms their findings. The most miserable and fed-up people I know are those who are most bent on being happy. They are saying to themselves what the old lady said to the frightened child whom she had taken to the circus: "Now enjoy yourself, do you hear? I brought you here to have a good time, so make sure you do" - as she shook him till his teeth rattled. In the passage before us today, it is said that the disciples were toiling, rowing in the dark and getting nowhere. The wind and the waves were against them and the whole venture was ending in futility. Then Jesus came. In John's account of the same event, we are told that they took Him into their boat and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading (John 6:21). This is the way it is with happiness. We strive to achieve it, but we "toil in rowing". Then we let Christ in - and lo, we reach the shore where we were going.
Father, I see that to get happiness, I must for-get it. It is not an achievement, but a by-product - a by-product of knowing You. Help me to know You better, not just today but every day. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.