The road is winding, the road you take to Me. You may speed down it. You may stroll down it. You may turn your face from it. You may walk backwards down it. You may run away from it, yet this road is what you are here for. It may seem like a lot of trouble to go to.

You might ask: “Why, God, don’t you make the path straight and get it done and over with? Why a whole lifetime or more to take for my shoe to fit?”

I understand what you are asking. You see the distance as too great. “Why can’t You make it shorter or straighter? Why all the getting lost and off-target? Why all the detours? Why not a straight line?”

Beloveds, would you have electric fences to keep you on the straight and narrow? the straight and narrow, of which there is no such thing? Perhaps you have been given directions, or you pulled them out from a shelf on the wall, or you made them up as you go along. Why is a long question, and the answer, as well as the path, is winding.

Of course, you might even ask, “Why make us humans have to go through this initiation at all? God, haven’t You said that each one of us is made of the same cloth as You? Why, then, the occasion for a roundabout way to You? God, please, just give us You. Avenge ignorance. Give us, each of us, not just me, a practice map or a map we can go by. Let’s get right to it. Make us happy now, will You?”

You may merit all the gold in Heaven, yet there is something about earning your gold. Like any challenge, the denouement is wonderful, yet the path to the conclusion is worth its weight in gold. When all is said and done, a life sitting with your feet up, eating bon-bons doesn’t compare to a life of adventure and twists and turns and your gaining the hidden chalice.

Of course, however you gain your exquisite awareness with Me, you will love it. At the same time, there is something underlying in you that craves challenge. As with a game of solitaire, if you win every hand, the joy is no longer there, so why bother? Beloveds, there is something in your nature that values the bare bones of life. There is something in you that requires that you make your way yourself. The words Open Sesame are not so wonderful as you might think. Nope, too easy is not the way.

In any case, the obstacles are there, and all the obstacles are not traps set for you. They are obstacles within you that you are making short work of. There is a monkey-wrench in the works, and you are clearing your own path that you walk on. This is a task you best do by your own hand and your heart. If you have to climb the trellis to the princess’s tower, then so you must, and you find the climb well worth the trip.

There is a golden path to all that you seek, and you get there by the love in your heart.

You may say: “But, still, God, why not our trip expedited? Why not air mail? Why not first class, express? Why must we go by pony express when a blessing from Your hand will do it nicely?”

Beloveds, I bless you with My own hand. I do it non-stop. There has to be you who receives it. Beloveds, you may want the fruit of the vine to ripen in a week instead of the ripening season, and, yet, I ask you with all love: “What is amiss with a perfect ripening season?”