One day, our Zion’s young adult members went to Busan Citizens’ Park together. The eco-friendly park with various themes had a lot of attractions.
While taking a walk to the park, we spotted a fun place. It was a hedge maze. It had complicated routes in various directions with camellia trees standing as walls.
There was no way that we, the young adult members full of curiosity, would miss the chance of trying it. We immediately went inside the hedge maze. We decided that whoever came out of the maze first would be the winner. After carefully looking at the map of the hedge maze, we started our race.
At first, I followed the route without any hesitation, remembering the map, but as time passed, the map in my mind faded away, and I was all confused.
‘Was it this way or that way?’
I ran here and there, but there was no exit. I ran the same route a few times, went to a dead end, and fell in a trap while following other people.
Going nowhere, lost in the maze, I suddenly heard a familiar voice.
“Sister, turn to the left!”
When I turned around to see the direction the voice was coming from, the sisters who didn’t join the maze race were shouting at us from the observatory where they could see the whole hedge maze from above.
“No, go to the right, again! No, not that way! To the other way!”
They were trying to explain to me which way to go, but it was hard to follow their guidance because the tree walls were blocking my view. Thanks to the sisters who told me the way out with an earnest voice, I barely managed to escape from the maze. I felt thankful that I got out of it before the sunset.
One of the sisters who were looking at us from the observatory said to me, “We told you to go this way! It was so frustrating while looking at you from above.”
Then everybody said with one voice, “How frustrating it must be for Heavenly Father and Mother!”
Being in the hedge maze reminded me of our spiritual status. When I entered the maze, I was confident that I could get out of the maze without any help. Since I saw the map before entering it, I was very confident, but I couldn’t remember the map at all when I was lost.
It made me reflect upon myself whether I might have forgotten God, having fallen into the groundless confidence that I can do everything by myself while walking the gospel path only with the vague hope for heaven.
It is God who sees everything from the beginning. Therefore, it is only God who can lead us to heaven. How frustrating it must be for Heavenly Father and Mother to see Their children act as if they know how to get to heaven although they actually don’t know what is right ahead of them?
To release Father and Mother’s frustration, I will pay attention to Their word, follow Their voices, and go straight to the destination, heaven. I give thanks to Father and Mother for allowing us, the young adult members, to understand Their hearts and to have a deep realization through a special experience.