“And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Isaiah 35:8-10). Wayfaring means to travel on foot. There is a way of holiness but it must be walked. We might like to travel on this highway in an expensive sports car or if it had tracks, maybe a bullet train, or even skip the wheels and the ground altogether and fly over the whole thing. But the unclean will not pass over it. There are no free rides or shortcuts to the gospel. We must walk every step. The good news is, though, that as long as we are walking on the highway to heaven, we will not go astray. We may, when we are being honest, admit that we are fools and we don't really know what we're doing and we don't really understand why we have to obey God's commandments and we may not be very successful at obeying them as perfectly as we would like. However, even though we are fools, if we wayfarers will walk the walk then we will find that even though walking on the Lord's way of holiness can be hard and tiring and tedious and so, so slow, it truly is the safest place that we can be. This is the Lord's Highway. He's not going to let any lions or ravenous beasts make their way onto the path to devour us. No unclean thing can reach us when we are walking on the way of holiness. And if we will just stay on the path long enough, even sorrow and sighing will flee away as we come to Zion to obtain joy and gladness. Life is hard and we are often foolish but if we will just keep walking, it will all make sense in the end.
