Why The Way Is Often Long

We often will take the shortest route. The focus shouldn’t be on the length of the journey but the purpose of the journey. We must realize that God knows all things and His way is always the best way. We like to argue with God about His directions for our lives.

The children of Israel were just simple people that all they knew were labor, they did not know warfare. The shortest route for them to get to the promised land was through a place that was full of war-loving people. They didn’t know this but God did, so he took them the longer was around them.

Jeremiah 2
Once you are saved you lost all rights to your will. We should trust God with His all-knowing knowledge when He leads us as a shepherd does.
At times our journey is long. One of those reasons is to take care of the enemies that will come against us. On the day you got saved the devil knew you. He knows your name and he knows how to get to you and cause problems in your life. God has to deal with him and his demons. Every Sunday morning the devil starts to keep you from going to church. You have no idea that there are demons out there trying their best to tear you down. Yet God comes on the scene and places His shield around you for protection from the enemy.

Just as soon as the people of Israel left Egypt was to harden Pharaoh’s heart as well as his followers. God did this for something great. The people didn’t understand this and over and over again thought they were going to die at the hands of Pharaoh. When they came to the sea they thought they were about to die because they thought they were trapped. God said, hang on a minute. He hardened the hearts of their enemies to take care of the enemy. So he opened the sea, sent his people through to the other side on dry ground only to remove the enemy by closing the sea on them. We often times whine and complain about the length and trials of the journey all the while knowing God knows why and will protect us. God knows best!

The other reason is that He is trying to humble and make us more submissive to His will. If He didn’t do this then we wouldn’t proclaim Him as God. Only in God would they find what they needed if they just trusted Him. If they had just believed God then their journey wouldn’t have been so long. Just like us, we often take longer journeys because we fall back to ourselves instead of trusting in Him. He will often give us the choice to put a stop to our journey. He’ll place an exit ramp on our journey but we often think we know better and keep going. Yet we wonder why we feel defeated or run down. It’s our own fault.

The journey can often take longer because He must teach us. Just as school children, if it only took a few classes to know everything then they would only go to first or second grade. The question for the journey is not just so He could watch you stumble around but to teach you things. For some, it takes longer because we think we already know it all. The best place to learn is when you’re not talking and you’re right in the middle of a “wilderness” and fully dependent on God.

The others were done to give us the fourth. God promised them a land. Still to this day, it is His/their land. The reason the journey is long is that you have a prepared future and you are not ready for it yet. The battle of Jericho… They were not ready for Jericho so they had to march around the city wall once before the walls fell. This battle was one in a short length of time because of the lesson they learned from being in the wilderness. This is not our home. Everything you go through down here is to prepare you for the promised land of Heaven.