When I was little, my mom and I used to go on walks a lot. There was a marsh just up the street from our house with a wide, winding dike that cut through it, and we would often walk along it in the mornings. A little ways down from the entrance to the marsh was an outcropping. I'm not sure when, but at some point someone had taken a large rake and pushed the gravel aside to form a prayer labyrinth. Day after day we would walk out to the marsh, and the labyrinth was always there to greet us. One of my favorite things to do was walk along that labyrinth until I got to the center.
Labyrinths are interesting. From the outside, they look small, simple. You can see the whole thing at once and the center of it seems so close. But once you actually step into it, once you start walking, you realize the path is coiled in on itself so many times that it's actually a lot longer than it looks. It's disorienting. You might feel like you've walked over the same spot ten times. Or you might accidentally step over the lines and have to start over again. If you rush, you'll absolutely mess up.
In the beginning, I always have a tendency to look towards the center, to try and gauge just how close I am to finishing. I'm never that close. But after awhile, I turn my eyes to the path. My focus is only on my footsteps. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...
And suddenly, I am in the center.
Lots of different thoughts may crop up in my mind while I'm walking that labyrinth, but the second I reach the center, they all vanish. There's a sort of emptiness that consumes me – not the terrifying, lonely kind, but the other kind – a sort of waiting, hopeful emptiness that creates the space for God to enter in.
My walk with Christ has been a lot like this labyrinth.
Sometimes, I make the mistake of thinking I can understand God, or fit Him into a neat little box. As if this journey towards Him is a straight path that I can easily follow. But it's not. God is a winding labyrinth folded in upon itself an infinite number of times. And just when I think I'm getting closer to understanding Him, He throws me for a loop again. Only when I stop leaning on my own ability do I get to see a rare glimpse of His heart. When I disappear, when I empty myself out completely, when there is nothing else besides a love of God and a child's desire to see her Father, there is room for God to walk beside me. Behind me. Ahead of me.
Sometimes we are lost in the labyrinth. And that's okay. Because when we are lost, Christ reaches out, and takes our hand, and says, "This way – follow me."
