“No Matter Where You Go – There You Are”

A friend posted on Facebook his decision to move his membership to another church. The reason he gave was that he wanted to worship at a church“where I feel accepted, loved and not judged…”

The humble question:  If you want to feel acceptance, were you accepting of others? If you wanted to feel love & non-judgment, did you give love & non-judgment?
(Honestly, over the years that I've known him, the impression he radiated was one of appearing unloving, judgmental & unapproachable...uhm...)

Another friend asked my advice regarding relationships following her 3^rd divorce. I asked her if she wanted me to tell her what she wanted to hear or my honest observation. She insisted she wanted straight-talk. I calmly replied, “Well, your ex-spouses have moved on to have happy marriages and families. Unfortunately, the only common denominator between all 3 relationships…is YOU.”

I know colleagues who “job-hopped” to new cities. In each new job, they had the same complaints: “the culture was wrong; management was unfair; the other associates were unprofessional; the city is congested; the people are rude...”

What they failed to realize is that going somewhere else is only GEOGRAPHY. “You take You with You.” Often, the biggest change we need to make is not in our location – but in our thoughts & attitude.

A few tough questions to ask include:

•      IF I want to be loved…am I loving?
•       IF I want friends…am I friendly?
•      IF I want people to feel comfortable approaching me…am I approachable?

Sometimes, we need to “mentally” step outside of ourselves to see ourselves. We can only grow if we are “brutally honest” with ourselves and see things as they ARE, not as we’d like to see them.

We are often guilty of making excuses such as:

“The church didn’t make me feel welcome.”

“My husband didn’t make me happy.”

“I didn’t get anything out of worship service today.”

“I didn’t get anything out of that meeting.”

Another example would be if you were a habitual smoker, yet complained because everywhere you went, it smelled like smoke.

One of my favorite quotes is: “We are often preaching to others to get out of the rain, while others are looking at you quite confused…because you are the only one dripping wet…”

We often measure things in life by what we didn’t receive. The question is: What did you give?

“Be the Change You Wish to See In The World.”- Mahatma Gandhi

Until you deal with the “person reflecting back to you in the mirror,” everywhere you go is going to eventually look like the place you left.

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." - Wayne Dyer

The best conclusion we could ever hope for is quoted by T.S. Eliot:

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”