Wherever You Go There You Are

“Wherever You Go, There You Are”
by Don Emmitte

Dr. Viktor Frankl, author of the book Man's Search For Meaning, was imprisoned by the Nazis in the Second World War because he was a Jew. His wife, his children, and his parents were all killed in the holocaust. The Gestapo made him strip. He stood there totally naked. As they cut away his wedding band, Viktor said to himself. "You can take away my wife, you can take away my children, you can strip me of my clothes and my freedom, but there is one thing no person can EVER take away from me -- and that is my freedom to choose how I will react to what happens to me!" Even under the most difficult of circumstances, happiness is a choice which transforms our tragedies into triumph. One of the ways that we may choose this happiness for our lives is in the practice of the principle that “wherever you go, there you are.” The following psalm of David speaks to this truth:

Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices! Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil. For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land. (Psalm 37:1-9 ESV).

We all tend to believe at one time or another that if we were somewhere else – on vacation, with another partner, in a different career, a different home, a different circumstance – somehow we’d be happier and more content. The truth is, if you have destructive mental habits – if you get annoyed and bothered easily, if you feel angry and frustrated a great deal of the time, or if you are constantly wishing things were different, these identical tendencies will follow you wherever you go. And, the opposite is also true. If you are generally a happy person who rarely gets annoyed and bothered, then you can move from place to place, from person to person, with very little negative impact.

That’s what David meant when he closed this paragraph of Psalm 37 by saying, “…those that trust in the Lord will possess the land.” Life is like driving an automobile. It must be driven from the inside, not the outside! As we learn to focus more on who we are in Christ we can become more peaceful with where we are, rather than where we would rather be. Remember, wherever you go, there you are!