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We wove in and out of the Wisconsin countryside, enjoying warm conversation while cornstalks curiously peeped out of snowdrifts and shuddered in the February breeze along the highway.

For the past two years, I have made a pilgrimage to Dubuque, Iowa to speak in chapel at Emmaus Bible College. Both times I have enjoyed a healthy snowfall, which for anyone from Horry County is more than twelve flakes in a single day.

Both trips involved excessive amounts of coffee being sipped with friends. Both trips included a lengthy drive to and from airports with friends who are more like family because Dubuque no longer offers a direct commercial flight into town. Typically, my travel led me through O鈥橦are International Airport in Chicago, a hefty three-hour drive, one-way. This trip, however, God routed me to Milwaukee, a first for me. Although the drive is comparable in both time and distance, the view along the way to Milwaukee is worth it.

On this trip, my dear friend and I sped along backcountry highways, taking in the scenery and talking about life. One of the wonders I have experienced in the past decade of my life has been an increase in traveling across the country. It has been a sweet gift from the Lord for three reasons. First, it reminds me of how vast and creative He is. Second, it reminds me of how small I am. And third, it reminds me of how much there is to learn.

As he drove, my friend shared facts about the area that, though frozen, quickly melted from view. There was an ice harbor along the way out of town where, at one point, people sawed the ice by hand and shipped it down the Mississippi River to other places in the country. Later, there appeared to be an entire village of ice fishing tents on a small lake along the highway. I started to see the trend that ice is a big industry when you go far enough north. Ironically, I saw no billboards advertising ice cream.

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Finally, my mentor began to talk about the highway systems. 鈥淲hen settlers moved west,鈥� he said, 鈥渢he government divided the land as evenly as possible.鈥� As a result, properties were almost exclusively parceled out into near-perfect squares. Likewise, roads and highways had to maneuver farms and fields to avoid destroying harvests. So, when you try to go somewhere, anywhere, there is no shortcut. You have to travel in straight, vertical or horizontal lines.

鈥淭here are no diagonals,鈥� he said. Every way is the long way.

Perhaps you feel this in your Christian life. Maybe you had thought there was something new and hopeful on your horizon. We all feel this at different points in our journey. We expect healing from hurts, growth out of unhealthy habits, victory over sin, but with every step it feels like we have not moved at all.

We want with great desperation, a deep and settled hunger, a throbbing thirst, to feel whole before a holy God. But with every season the distance seems to stretch. We cannot believe the fact that we still struggle in similar or even the same ways that we always have. We wonder, 鈥淲hat good is the Good 糖心vlog官方入口? What has God given me by believing his gospel?鈥�

Dear friend, let me remind us of two freeing, life-giving truths. First, though we do not always feel it, we can rest assured that for those of us who have come to the cross, confessed our sins and received the grace of God in Jesus Christ, we are whole before him, because of Christ鈥檚 finished work in our place. Second, though we do not live perfectly, we can live faithfully repentant lives that return, moment-by-moment, to the truth of the gospel.

God has not called us to be perfect in and of ourselves. We cannot. Rather, he has called us to trust entirely in his Son, Jesus, who lived the life we could not, died the death we deserve, and was raised to life to prove the gospel true. If you have never considered that reality, please do that today, even now.

Do not be dissuaded by the long way, friends. The path Jesus placed before us and called us to follow him down is one of languishing and great length. Meanwhile, by his grace, it is mysteriously marvelous and joyful. The road to sanctification, to being shaped into Christ鈥檚 image, to growing in holiness and grace, is the long way. But Jesus, Immanuel, the very with-us God, goes alongside us and enables us. Elisabeth Elliot, following her husband Jim鈥檚 martyrdom, explained our walk of faith this way: 鈥淥ne does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime.鈥�