Whenever I go visit a national park, I always stop at the visitor center and ask for recommendations. At every one, they pull out a map, and they usually helpfully circle the best places to hike. Sometimes, they do this enthusiastically. Sometimes, you can tell they've given the same speech and circled the same destinations on a map 16 times in the last 20 minutes. Once, they told me all the best places that I should go see, but to do any of it, I needed a ticket that I couldn't get. Less helpful, but the same map.
Jesus doesn't point to a map. He doesn't give us directions to follow. Instead, he tells us that he is the map. He is the way. We don't get a map, we get a relationship, and we should remember that the relationship is with someone who is willing to die for us, even if we're going to stray from the map and get lost -- the God in the relationship comes after us. We're the lost sheep going away, but we can't fall off the map, because God pursues us.
It's way better than a map -- it's a person, and that person loves us enough to pay any price to be in an eternal relationship with us. Rather than follow a map, we follow a person, and that person chooses us!
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