Life in a Maze

I had a sign in my classroom that said, "We try. We learn. We change. We grow." I use it to represent how we all make mistakes, wrong choices, and bad decisions. We hope to learn from our mistakes, grow, and become better people.

Looking at the poster, I began thinking about our lives, mistakes, and trials. God gives us problems to teach us. Psalms 66:10, "For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us a silver is tried." Metal is heated to remove all the impurities, so are we trying to remove our sin? We go through trials in our daily walks. Matthew 7:14 tells us, "Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth into life, and few there be that find it." We must walk the straight and narrow.

This makes me think of a garden maze. You walk in, trying to make it to the other side. Occasionally you make a wrong turn and end at a dead end. You need to turn around and retrace your steps. Life is like that garden maze. Our lives have times when we hit a wall or make a wrong turn and need to repent and turn around and get back on the right path. And like the maze, our lives are full of turns, crossroads, ups, and downs.

How often have you gone on a trip, thought you were following the map, and turned the wrong way? We do it at least once every trip, even with today's modern GPS systems. It's life. We have to pay attention to where we're going, where we've been, and how we got to where we are.

The Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years. Where were they going? Where had they been? How did they get to where they were?

Where were they going? After being in slavery in Egypt for 430 years, the Israelis were dying out. They wandered to the wilderness of the Red Sea (Exodus 13). God went before them by day in a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire to guide them. (20-22). They came to a dead end in their maze. Pharaoh was pursuing them, and they feared. They forgot the miracles Moses had performed and how God had led them to where they were. Chapter 14 tells us they began complaining that they would have been beer off back in slavery. Even in their fear and lack of understanding, God opened the sea for them to cross on dry ground and crushed Pharaoh's army under the weight of the sea. They continued on their way to Canaan. They grumble and complain about the lack of water and food. But God continually supplied their needs. (16) Manna every morning and water from the trees and rocks.

Every time they came to a problem or a trial, they forgot God was there with them, providing and protecting them. God kept having to remind them.

We let our desires decide which way to go. We follow the crowd. But wide is the road and the gate that leads to destruction. Just ask David, Jonah, and the Israelites. They followed their desires and took things they thought would make them happy. In the end, they were wrong. But God forgave them and put them back on the straight and narrow.