Minute Meditations

”Wherever I go, there I am.” This little saying is so obvious one would think that it did not need saying, yet we constantly hear of people sometimes traveling great distances to ”get away from it all.” When they get ”there,” they haven’t gotten away from it all after all, for they took it with them.

The problem is not where we are or what we have. If we are in the business of manufacturing misery, then we keep right on turning it out even when we try to ”get away from it all.” We simply take our miserable thinking with us. If we decide to be happy we can also take that with us. Paul said, ”I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”

Outside circumstances do not really dictate our happiness or misery, our thoughts do that. It is not necessary for us to travel to find happiness or get away from misery. ”Wherever I go, there I am,” and our carry-on luggage will always include our own mental attitude. Abraham Lincoln said that ”most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Of all the people on the earth, we ought to be the happiest. Paul felt this way and told us 19 times in four short chapters in Philippians to be happy, to rejoice, to be filled with gladness. He said, ”I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” He could and we can, too. Paul was in prison when he wrote this letter on how to be happy and we might think that no ane could talk this way being chained to a Roman soldier, but he did.

When we consider the fact that all things are working together for our good, we should be encouraged to accept the few little problems that come our way realizing that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness. All things really does mean all things, and so we can sing, ”if thou but suffer God to guide thee, and hope in Him through all thy ways, He’ll give thee strength whatever betide thee, and bear thee through the evil days.”

Whenever we are tempted to feel discouraged or downcast, we should sing the question and the answer we have in our hymn, ”Why should His people now be sad? None have such reason to be glad, as reconciled to God.”

We do sing this. We need to live that which we sing. In another hymn, we ask God to ”help us this and every day to live more nearly as we pray.” We need to live more nearly as we pray and more nearly as we sing, as well. Believ- ing this, we can really mean it when we sing, ”Father, I ask that all my life may be o’erruled by Thee; the changes then that surely come I shall not fear to see.”

Many of our hymns will help us to totally commit our lives to God and ”trust in Him in all our ways.” ”Take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee” becomes our goal in life and the ”wherever I go, there I am” will also mean that He is there as well, for He has promised ”never to leave us or forsake us.” With joy then we sing, ”Take myself and I will be, ever, only all for Thee. ”