Once upon a time, there were two teenage girls who went to a corn maze with their fathers. This corn maze had a tower above it where a watcher could see every twist and turn of the maze.
This was not a small maze where the fun of it was to get lost and find your way out. For this maze, the intent was for the person to go up in the tower and direct the other through the maze from one of many entrances to the center. In addition, many paths had traps which were only visible from above, and some paths had doors that were hidden from the person in the maze.
It was a test in communication.
Both fathers went up the tower, and then both daughters chose their entrance and stepped into the maze.
One daughter looked up at her father in the tower as she took her first steps. He directed her forward to the first intersection and then told her which way to turn.
The other girl saw what appeared to be a straight, clear path and boldly walked the length to the first intersection of paths before looking up at her father. He directed her to the left, and she forged ahead again. But the next time she looked up at him, she had trouble understanding his directions. It seemed like he was directing her backwards, so she tried it but couldn’t figure out how far to go. Then, just as he tried to call out explanations regarding the hidden door, wind from an unexpected storm kicked up and rustled the corn so much she couldn’t hear him.
Meanwhile, the first daughter continued her careful steps according to her father’s directions. When the wind kicked up, that father began using arm and body signals. The girl and her father had spent much time together over the years, so she had no trouble following. She did what she saw her father do. When he mimed a left turn, she turned left. When he acted out pulling open a door, she searched for the door in the same direction, opened it when she found it, and confidently walked through.
The second girl’s father tried the same thing, but this father and daughter didn’t have a good relationship. They hadn’t spent much time together, and the girl had decided that her father couldn’t be trusted. When he acted out a turn where there didn’t seem to be a door, she got frustrated and wondered if he was playing a trick on her. She decided to check out the path ahead, and she disregarded her father’s frantic waving. She quickly fell into a trap that entangled her legs. She spent a weary half hour working her way out of it.
An hour went by, and the storm hit. The first girl’s father directed her to a sheltered area where she waited it out. The second girl couldn’t see her father and got drenched. Fear took over, as she frantically stumbled around looking for a shelter, and she fell into another trap. By the time the storm ended, she had lost all willingness to trust any directions her father gave.
The storm passed, and the first daughter resumed her careful steps until she reached the center where her father welcomed her.
Night fell and the second girl was still stumbling around in the dark.
Does life ever feel like a maze? It sort of is a maze, with good paths and bad ones, traps and hidden doors, many entrances, but only one end worth finding.
You have a Father who sees the whole maze perfectly, and He is like the first father, completely trustworthy.
But His knowledge and trustworthiness are not enough to get us through that maze.
The girl had choices, and so do we. Two things are required of us.
1) We must be willing to develop a relationship with Him, to gain practice hearing His voice and recognizing His movements, no matter how quiet and small. He doesn’t force us. We must seek Him.
2) And we must obey. We have the choice to ignore His directions. Our trust is proved by our obedience. The first girl’s trust in her father made it easy for her to follow every direction, no matter how crazy it seemed. The second’s choice to ignore her father was a simple reflection of her lack of trust in him.
God is calling us to spend even more time getting to know Him… to learn to recognize His smallest whisper and most subtle movement. He wants us to come to know Him so well and trust Him so completely that we can walk through this maze of life confidently, obeying as Jesus did. Remember when Jesus said that He said and did only what He saw and heard the Father say and do? (John 5:19) That is what we are called to do as well, for this is the natural result of the relationship that God wants to have with us.
How do you want to go through your maze?
Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on Your faithfulness – Ps. 86:10