“Thomas asked, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?’” (John 14:5, CEB)
My interest in the Museum of Science and Industry has admittedly waned over the years, but when your mom is in town and the kids probably won’t be thrilled with the Art Institute, the MSI is a good place to go. It has an exhibit open right now called “The Mirror Maze: A Journey in Patterns.” Like any good exhibit at a science museum, it attempts to teach something (all the patterns that one finds in nature) while entertaining at the same time. I’m not sure my kids would do well on a patterns in nature test if I gave it to them today, but it definitely was fun and a little scary, too. This was like a hall of mirrors you’d find at an amusement park, only on steroids.
When you first enter, of course, it seems clear that all you have to do reach the end is walk down the clear pathway until–BONK–you run into a wall/mirror (I’ll neither confirm nor deny being the recipient of said bonk). This little journey would take longer than I realized and I found myself getting claustrophobic, which isn’t something I feel very often. My son quickly grabbed my hand (for his sake and probably for mine) so we wouldn’t get separated and we slowly made our way, taking a lot of wrong turns and getting more than a little frustrated at our lack of progress. The only thing that worked was literally putting my hand out in front of me so I could feel what was really a pathway and what was a barrier.
How often do we feel like Thomas in this passage from John! “Lord, we don’t know where you are going.” Making the decision to follow Jesus isn’t an easy one, but when you say yes to that invitation, you may think that the path is clear. But it soon becomes evident, that you don’t know where Jesus is leading, which leads to frustration and a few bonks along the way. “How can we know the way?”
In those moments of feeling lost and directionless, I often find the best thing to do is to go slowly and methodically, making sure I hold my hand out to feel my way forward (while holding the hand of a trusted friend, too). Take a couple steps. Stop. Pray about whether this is where Jesus is leading. Listen. Ask that trusted friend. Take another step. If you run into something, don’t give up. Take a step back and start again, trusting that Jesus is ahead of you, behind you, and is also that trusted friend who is with you, as well.