Life
is Like a Corn Maze
You start at the beginning
Free and fresh
Confident and whole
You have people
surrounding you
You think you are all on the same
path, the same journey, to escape the maze, or achieve the prize at the end.
But as you go inside the maze,
someone takes a turn.
You have a
choice to make. Do I follow them, or do I stay with the majority of the group?
Uncertain, you pick one or the other;
you are thinking it probably doesn’t matter.
Then as you wander along, like
the blind leading the blind, another turns another way. Again, the choice is presented;
you think “What should I do?” Things aren’t that serious, so you
stay with the
group, you wander alone together, you are safe, you think, and we are together.
Yet, slowly one by one the group depreciates. Will you ever make it to the end
you wonder?
The maze starts to get tiring.
You wander off
by yourself.
You look back but there’s no one
around you. No one followed you. You panic, you run around trying to find someone,
somewhere.
There’s no one. You sit down in the corn and
you think to yourself… “How did I get to a place where I didn’t want to be?”
You think harder, you just followed them all. You never stood up and made a
choice. So you were left to wander, wander around, following until you were so
weary you became a wanderer. There’s hope for you yet. Maybe you can find
someone that can help guide you through. Yet, there’s no one in sight.
This is what life is like. A lot
of people here, stuff in the middle of a corn maze, no one left beside them,
except people who will come and go. I heard an expression today, “Since I
didn’t feel like shooting bull, I decided to stay home”. This is what life is
like to a lot of people. A bunch of bull, people saying things they don’t
really understand or mean or care about- and then other people following those
lies until they are all lost in a pile of bull in the middle of a corn field,
separated alone. Who’s the man now, when you are lost in a maze? The fact is,
you are lost, it doesn’t matter how man you are in the middle of a maze. You
are lost, like a pilgrim on the middle of an ocean hoping for someone to spot
land in a crowded ship. No one knows the way to go.
In life though, there’s something
that can change all that. Like Jesus coming down. I’m serious; he’ll shine
right down within your heart.
He’ll light your way- purpose for every step
in the maze. All of a sudden, life ain’t such a maze anymore. You are running
into people again, but this time you aren’t thinking about yourself. You aren’t
thinking about how you are going to get out. Your eyes are on the light of
Christ; all of a sudden you look around, lost in the moment, people are
following you. It’s not the same feeling you had at the beginning, when you felt
so lost, now you and the people have a purpose. They can feel within their
bones. They feel it within themselves because the purpose isn’t about getting
out of the maze like you thought it was. The purpose is in Christ, who has set
his hand in all things over all creation.
Finally, you exit the maze. You
shout for joy, but you realized that the joy is just getting started because
the moment you thought you figured something out, everything changes.
Thus
says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in
man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
Blessed is the man, who trusts in the Lord,
Whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
The heart is deceitful above all
things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,b
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”
Jeremiah 17:5-10
