Using Wrong Maps and Forging Our Own Paths
We've gone to space, aren't we smarter than ancient people?
In the summer of 2018, I got to go on a canoe trip with my camp. I had thought our camp, with its cabins, dining hall, washroom facilities and other amenities, was the real outdoor experience. That was until I was in a canoe in the wilderness, setting up bug nets and tarps to camp under the stars each night. It was a vastly different experience. It made me appreciate those camp mattresses, as uncomfortable as they may be.
About halfway through this trip, we came into a small lake and were looking for the Portage Trail towards the next one. It was going to be a relatively short part of our day, but as we paddled around, we couldn’t find the path that the map was showing. After a while, we pulled up onto the bank, and our guides went into the woods a little bit to see if they could find the path, and we stayed with the group of junior high students as we waited.
I took the opportunity to stretch out and rest my eyes, and supervise with my ears. At one point, one of the students said, “Hey Keith, they’ve been gone a really long time.” I told them that it wasn’t actually that long and that they’d be back soon. But this student had the watch for the day and confirmed that it had been over an hour. I guess I did more than rest my eyes for a few minutes.
We did the only appropriate thing I could think of and continued to wait for the guides to come back. Finally, they emerged from the woods, unable to find the path, and let us know we would need to forge our own way through the woods. We pulled our canoes out of the lake to leave for the second trip and headed out into the woods with our packs. Let me tell you, forging our own way was not that enjoyable.
At one point we were climbing a steep hill; you’d make one step and slide down three. The sun was beginning to set, and the bugs were beginning to come out. Eventually we made it to the top of this hill, and it became too dark to climb down the other side in the dark. We had to make camp in this spot, in the middle of the woods and a fair distance from the next lake. It was quite the adventure. One of our guides grabbed our water bottles and took a long venture through the woods to fill them up, and it took a long time. We still had a ways to go in the morning.
In our camp on the hill, I lay down on my rolled-up sweater as a pillow, and I thought, how the heck are we going to get our canoes through here tomorrow? This path wouldn’t work. It took so long to get to where we were, and we weren’t even all the way through yet.
We woke up, packed up, and made our way to the other side and left our bags at the next lake. We made our journey back to our canoes, taking a slightly different path this time. Internally, I was dreading what was about to come next, but externally I was trying to keep a positive attitude, knowing that the other adult leaders would be mostly carrying the canoes through these woods, but I had to keep morale up. Fake it till you make it, or so they say.
We lifted the canoes onto our shoulders and made our way into the woods. We had to have students help maneuver us through trees, one step forward, three steps back. We had to keep adjusting the path to find a way where they would fit through. Eventually, one of the students who was looking to the right for a less dense area said: “Hey, should we try this path?” The missing path had been found. I could have cried in that moment. The fake positivity I was trying to put on had been replaced by overflowing joy. What was going to be one of the most miserable experiences turned into an easy walk through the woods.
The map we had was wrong, and the paths we were trying to forge on our own weren’t working out, but thankfully we found the correct path in the end.
These two ideas are reflected in life beyond a canoe trip. We’ve been given maps that don’t work. Maps that say this is the way to true happiness. Joy is here. Abundance of possessions in our purpose. We follow these maps, but they don’t lead to where they say. We reach what we think is our destination, but still have further to go. The end is always around the bend. Perhaps the problem is with how I’ve been reading the map. Surely the map must fulfill what it promises to accomplish.
Other times we try to make our own way. We try to forge a new path. We try to brute force our way forward. We no longer look to others or structures to find our way; we just try to do it on our own. Surely I can discover my own way to fulfillment. We are living in a new era after all; the old maps will no longer work. We must make new ones. Life is constantly changing, so are the paths to navigating it. We just need to figure it out.
But what if there were better ways? What if we recognize that the maps we’ve been given aren’t correct? What if we trust that there may be ancient wisdom? What if the problems of today really aren’t all that different from the problems the generation before me faced, or even all the generations before? Perhaps, like on my trip, there is a tried and true path available to us.
The Prophet Jeremiah records these words of God to the people of Israel. They were using new maps and trying to forge their own path, but God calls out to them:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.”
Jeremiah 6:16 (NIV)
Ask for the ancient path. Seek this path and walk into it. It leads to rest for our souls. The maps of modern technology promise this, but cannot deliver. Forging our own ways is not working. What if this ancient map of Wisdom from God through Scripture leads to that true path? What if the Gospel stories and ancient letters to churches thousands of years ago reveal this map? This path is available to us. Do not end up wandering in a wilderness trying to forge your own way or be deceived by maps with promises of easy ways forward. There is an ancient path; it is hard at times. However, it leads to true rest for our souls. It leads us to the one who created us. Who loves us. Who took on flesh and died so that we may have life to the fullest. This is the true path of life.
At this crossroad, will you call out to the Lord to show you this ancient path?