Finding Your Place

In 1991, Michael W. Smith achieved his biggest mainstream success with a song that climbed the charts to land at number six on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was called “Place in This World”.  It touched on a theme that resonates in all of us. We all long to find a place that is our own, a place to which we truly belong, indeed a place in this world.

In more recent times, the gym franchise, Planet Fitness, has also utilized this longing as a catch phrase which is posted around their work-out facilities. It simply says, “You Belong”.

In survival, finding your place has to do with understanding navigation principles as well as knowing where to bed down for the night.

Wending your way through the wilderness is simple if you are just following established trails in a local or national park. However, once you leave the proverbial beaten path and begin to bushwhack your way cross country, things become a lot more difficult.  While it is true that many GPS systems can accurately pinpoint your exact location and take you safely to your goal, the biggest issue is that with electronic devices you are at the mercy of the technology.  There can be difficulties obtaining a signal, batteries that die or corrode in the unit, the GPS can be lost, broken or water damaged, or it can route you through an area that is simply either not safe or passable.  It doesn’t know how high the rivers are or how deep the snow might be. It cannot always tell the difference between a forestry service road or a well used gravel road.  Indeed, there are many stories of people getting into a survival situation because of a GPS.  It is a phenomenon known as “Death by GPS”.  Google it.  This is why it is so important to understand not only how to use a map and compass, but also primitive means of navigation that do not depend on any technology at all. This is how our ancestors traveled for thousands of years.

Then, when the sun is two hands from the horizon, it is usually time to find your place to camp for the night.  Finding a proper place that provides the necessary resources is a skill that must be developed.  You must understand how water travels, how the wind moves around hills and over ridges or up and down a slope. You must consider the availability of water, wood and wild edibles. You must also reckon with changing weather conditions and so a bit of primitive weather forecasting can be extremely important as the weather conditions can rapidly change from the forecast that you looked up before you left home.  Finding your place for the night means proper recovery and rest which is absolutely necessary for continuing the next day. Consider that getting a good night’s rest in a survival situation, whether for real or staged for practice, is probably the number one test of your wood craft skills.  If you sleep well, it means that you have chosen the right camp site, that you have a proper shelter for protection from wind, precipitation and wild animals, that you are hydrated and fed, that your bed is comfortable, and that your fire is properly distanced and built for the conditions at hand as well as having procured an adequate supply of fuel to keep warm all night.

Then, when all is properly done, you can spend those precious hours in the wilderness enjoying the harmonious sights and sounds of nature.  You have learned to bend the wilderness to sustain you and you are living in rhythm with nature, not fighting against it. You might even say that at least, for this night, you have found your place.

Spiritually speaking, there is a longing in all of us to belong.  We often feel like outcasts and orphans and have no place where we truly fit in.  We are continually the round peg in the square hole and it seems like there is no one who understands how we feel or how we struggle.

But God offers us the option of being adopted into His family.  He wants us to be His child and give us a place to belong.  We don’t have to be an outcast or an orphan!  He really loves us and He does understand how we feel and sees how we often struggle with life and it’s difficulties.  He has His own GPS.  I call it God’s Positioning System.  He can place you and use you for wonderful things and you will know that you really belong! The pressing question is this, have you turned your life over to His direction and control or are you still wandering in the wilderness?  Because, when you belong to Him, He will direct your paths and you will truly find your place in this world.

Thanks for reading!

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James B