Let me ask you a question — if you achieve the thing you are dreaming of, will you be happy?

Tom Sukanen came to Saskatchewan from Finland as a young man with immense strength and talent. He was a friend to all. He helped neighbours build their homes, work their land, repair their machinery, thresh their crops.

Through tragic circumstances he lost his family. He withdrew from his neighbours and began building a small ship that he would float up the Saskatchewan River to Hudson Bay and return to Finland. He built every part of the ship himself. He knew his business, he had charts of the river system, he knew the seas – it would have worked.

The drought of the 1930’s intervened. Tom Sukanen almost starved to death, and died a broken man in 1943 at the age of 65.

Would he have been happy if he had managed to return to Finland and receive a hero’s welcome for his accomplishment?

Or did he experience true happiness when he was helping his neighbours, only to turn his back on that to follow his dream?

We all need to follow a dream. But if it is a selfish dream, we will not find happiness at the end. Let our dream rather be of helping others find happiness. Then genuine happiness will sneak up and surprise us.

He that despiseth his neighbour sinneth: but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he. Proverbs 14:21.