I recall many years ago reading an old Sufi tale about a man who is observed searching for something beneath a street light. “What are you looking for?” asks a neighbor. “My house key,” is the response. “Where do you think you might have left it?” asks the neighbor. “In the house.” “Then why are you looking for it out here on the street?” “Because the light is better here.”
It is a chronic human propensity to be looking for things in places where they cannot be found. We sometimes seek for happiness in worldly abundance, hierarchical power, or transitory pleasures—even those rooted in transgression. Alma cautioned his wayward son Corianton: “wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10). Samuel the Lamanite proclaimed to the pridefully indulgent Nephites: “But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head” (Helaman 13:38).
Moroni, quoting from his father’s moving sermon on Christian goodness, added to the final section of the Book of Mormon a beautiful statement about the nature of the true light in which we should search for eternal rewards: “Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ” (Moroni 7:19). Searching for happiness “in the light of Christ” is a prudent and wise practice. The Psalmist counseled: “Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance” (Psalm 89:15; compare Psalm 90:8). The prophet Isaiah added this admonition: “O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:5; 2 Nephi 12:5).
By searching for the key of happiness in the illuminated precincts of covenant honor and righteousness, we assure ourselves of a place nearest the Savior, for that is where the light is best. (Richard J. Allen)