Now this is not something you see every day. The departing U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, has shared the kind of advice about people’s health that seems to be a bit rare from people in the Biden administration. While the advice is not specifically Christian, it does reflect the kind of thinking that emerges from a biblical worldview. Most of the people serving in that administration have tended to express more Marxist/naturalistic beliefs.
As he prepared to leave office, People Magazine wrote an article in which they shared Murthy’s final advice to the nation. The title of the article is Surgeon General Urges Americans to ‘Rethink How We’re Living Our Lives’ in Closing Letter to the Country. You can read it at: https://people.com/surgeon-general-vivek-murthy-americans-closing-letter-rethink-how-we-are-living-our-lives-exclusive-8770191.
Just for some background, Vivek Hallegere Murthy is an American physician and a vice admiral in the United States Public Health Service. He was originally appointed as Surgeon General of the United States under President Barack Obama, and served again in that position under Joe Biden.
Murthy’s parents immigrated from India to Yorkshire, England, where he was born, then later moved to Canada where his father worked as a doctor. When he was three years old, his family moved to Miami, Florida and set up a medical practice there. He completed high school in Miami, and from there went to Harvard for undergraduate work, and on to Yale where he earned an MBA and his M.D. He was raised Catholic.
He was considered controversial by certain people for some of his political stances. In particular he is very anti-gun, and was a strong supporter of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
In spite of his left leaning political tendencies, he penned some very sound advice as he left office.
“This is my parting prescription for the country I love.
There are well-known contributors to stress and discontent – economic hardship, worries about the future, the negative headlines that dominate our feeds – but even when these and other issues are addressed, there is often still something missing.
After years of reflecting on the stories I have heard, delving into scientific data, and convening researchers, I have come to see there are three essential elements that fuel our fulfillment and well-being: relationships, service, and purpose.
Relationships keep us grounded and bonded to each other. Service, from formal volunteering to informal small acts of kindness, is about helping each other. And purpose gives our life a sense of direction and meaning. Together, these elements form the triad of fulfillment.
Each of these can significantly impact our physical and mental health, reducing our risk for heart disease, depression, anxiety, and premature death. They also allow us to connect with something bigger than ourselves, a universal human need that brings us perspective and support and helps avoid the excessive rumination and focus on self that often contributes to mental distress.
Yet all three drivers of fulfillment have diminished in many of our lives. One-third of adults and about half of young people are struggling with loneliness. The majority of our country is not engaged in formal or informal service to each other. A majority of young adults say they have little or no sense of purpose or meaning in life.”
The truth is, Murthy has actually nailed the symptoms of the malaise that afflicts modern American society. The problems are not based on anything material. While material circumstances may have an influence on the deeper needs of humanity, the problems themselves are not material. Rather, they are spiritual. And the spiritual foundations of these things are indeed relationships, service, and purpose. And while Murthy identifies the foundational problems, he still misses, to a large degree, the solution to the problem as he deals with them based on a naturalistic worldview mindset, rather than a biblical one.
To a certain degree, relationships do keep us grounded and bonded to each other. Without the relationships extending to a relationship with God, however, we can never be grounded and bonded to the most important relationship of all – our relationship to God.
By the same token, acts of service, from formal volunteering to informal small acts of kindness, also provide a level of grounding that is essential to human thriving. But unless there is an ultimate purpose in doing the service for God’s glory, the service is not connected to anything that gives it deep meaning.
And finally, purpose does gives our life a sense of direction and meaning. But if that purpose is not connected to something eternal, the purpose can never be ultimately satisfying. It is only as we consciously fulfill God’s purpose that profound direction and meaning can ever be experienced.
Murthy’s advice definitely points us in the right direction, but does not go far enough as it is not fully based on a biblical worldview. It is only as we anchor all of those things in our relationship with God that we are able to get everything out of life that God intends.