Are You Using the Right Map?

“I’m lost!”

“Exactly. And you are looking at the wrong map.”

 

Disney’s Believe is one of the three stage productions on the Disney Dream cruise ship. The story is about a father who is preoccupied with cultivating his precious new flower that he overlooks his daughter’s birthday. Oh, he remembers it’s that day, but puts it way down his priority list. His daughter makes a special birthday wish that her father could somehow learn to believe, and the story takes her father—with the Genie (from Aladdin) as his guide—on a journey to discover that there’s more to magic than silly games and fairly tales.

 

One of the stops on that journey is with Rafiki, and it is here that an exchange between the two leapt out at me…the quotes at the top of this post. By this point in the story, all the father really knows is that he doesn’t know what’s going on and he needs to get home, but he keeps using the categories, methods, and approach that he understands. Unfortunately for him, in this new context they just don’t apply very well.

 

He admits he’s lost, and Rafiki tells him that he’s right about that, but he has a bigger problem. He’s looking at the wrong map.

 

It’s good to recognize that you’re lost. It’s better to have the right map to guide you to your destination. If I’m trying to get to a restaurant in Los Angeles, a map of Chicago will do me exactly no good. If I have tickets to see Wicked on Broadway, a map of Seattle is beyond useless.

 

The first step is knowing where you want to get to. The second is using the map that will get you there.

 

If your intended destination is fame, glory, power, wealth, prestige, self-indulgence, or self-reliance, you’ve come to the wrong place for a map. I don’t know how to get to those places. I’ve tried a few, but the only paths I’ve ever found down any of those roads are dead ends.

 

If your destination is peace, hope, love, joy, significance, purpose, and eternal life, I’ve got just the map for you: Jesus Christ.

 

You see, these are all characteristics of the “with-God” life, and Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If you want eternal life in heaven and abundant life (not pain-free or easy, but life to the full) now, He is your way to get there. Following Him. Learning from Him. Serving Him. Drawing near to Him.

 

Who you become and where you end up depend entirely on this. Your very identity and eternity are tied up in knowing that you’re not where you need to be and following the map that will get you to that destination.

 

It may sound narrow and exclusive…and it is. That doesn’t mean it’s not true, though. After all, like I said earlier, if your destination is somewhere in Los Angeles, a map of Chicago won’t get you there. It doesn’t matter how good the map is or how sincerely you follow it. All that matters is that it’s a map that has your destination on it, and that you follow that map.

 

Question: What is your desired destination? Are you following the map that will actually get you there? Talk about it in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.