This past weekend, some of our families and youth ventured into Marble Falls, TX to experience the joy of Sweet Berry Farms and their Corn Maze. We ended up having 18 people at the event and I think I can speak for all involved in saying it was a wonderful time spent with friends and family. If you haven’t had the opportunity to go out to the farm and experience it, I suggest you take the time to look up directions and pay them a visit. They have plenty of activities for the young and not so young alike! Besides the corn maze, there was sand art, horse riding, goat feeding, flower picking, pumpkin decorating, and many other items to enjoy.
When I was headed to the maze, I fully expected it to be the type where you enter in one spot and try to find your way out through another. This maze wasn’t quite like that. The entire maze is shaped like the state of Texas. You would enter in the top of the Panhandle and then you had to traverse the maze and hole punch a card which recorded different cities within the maze. The cities were placed in accordance to where you would find them in the state and on a map. It was quite a feat and they tell you when entering to plan on giving your self one and a half to two hours to complete it. For some of us we got discouraged and quit while others pushed through and successfully completed the entire project. There were 15 cities and some were quite hard to find as you look around at corn stalks which were about 8-10 feet high and filled with dead ends and circles which led you nowhere. Even though they encourage you to stay on the path and not make new ones throughout the maze, you could see where there were those who decided to take the “road less traveled” and create for them a new path through the corn. Sometimes this would just lead you to another part of the maze but when you were on the edges of the maze, you could find yourself a way out if you needed.
This reminded me of the Israelites and how they were subjected to wandering in the desert for years while they waited to find the Promise Land. We were only in the maze for between an hour and an hour and a half but there were times where I was frustrated on not knowing where I should go or if I was even making progress on finding locations. I wonder about how the Israelites felt while they were led what seemed like to them aimlessly through the desert. Even though the Lord provided for them, I can see where there might be some grumblings and discontentment in their situation. Do you find yourself sometimes feeling the same way in your life. If we step back and look around and see all the blessings which the Lord provides us yet we sometimes sound like frustrated followers and want him to provide even more than what he already does. Hebrews 13:5 states: “5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have,because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Let me challenge you and if you find yourself discontent or troubled at the lack of something, step back and look around to see the good in your life also. There were times where those in the corn maze were discouraged and troubled about the lack of a direction. We always have a direction when we are one with the Lord. Proverbs 3:5-6 states: 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. There were times when I wish my path through the corn maze and the maze of life were straighter but then I need to also learn to Trust in the LORD and not on what I think should be happening and he will take care of me and he will take care of you!
