Prayer Labyrinths?

In one of the local newspapers today was a photo and an article about a Methodist church that has installed a prayer labyrinth for members to walk over and meditate and pray on. This is not the first of these I have seen lately that a church has installed. Something was bothering me about it, so I did a quick search on the Internet.

What I discovered is that the origin of this type of thing is pagan. From Wikipedia: “As other pagan cultural practices, the Prayer Labyrinth was adopted by the Church across Europe during the medieval times, being often used as a means to meditate, pray and connect with God in a higher spiritual way.”

My question is, why would the “church” adopt a pagan practice? What possible good could come out of that?

Then I found this blog article which I believe says it all. Take a minute to read it.

One day a couple of years ago I was reading my Bible and this really jumped out at me in Isaiah 2:

5 O house of Jacob, come and let us walk
In the light of the LORD.
6 For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob,
Because they are filled with eastern ways;
They are soothsayers like the Philistines,
And they are pleased with the children of foreigners.

When we become filled with “eastern ways”, we are not walking in the light of the Lord. God told us to come out and be separate from among non-Christian people. When we participate in new age things, like labyrinths, yoga, acupuncture, reflexology and a host of other occult practices, I think we may be displeasing Him, disobeying Him, and removing ourselves from His will and His divine protection. Things may not “go well” for us as He promised, because of our disobedience.

The problem is most of the time we don’t even KNOW or REALIZE these things have occult origins. We just blindly accept things because they “appear” to be okay, or “appear” to be health-inducing, or “appear” to be good for us.

Remember, it all started when Satan tricked Eve in the garden of Eden. She was confused about which tree she could and couldn’t eat from, and instead of checking it out and making sure she was doing the right thing, she just fell right for Satan’s deception. That’s how easily we can be deceived by the father of lies. Think about it.

My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children. (Hosea 4:6)

Observe and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 12:28)