Travel pack (check), pillow (check), lap top (check), coffee mug (fill and double check). Soon I was ready for a big trip with Sean. He had the coffee made and the directions printed out. We were leaving plenty early in the day so we would have no trouble finding our hotel. Of course we forgot about day light savings  (grrr), seriously, who needs an extra hour of light in the morning? It was dark by the time we got to St. Cloud, the one town we needed to navigate through (besides Voss and Minto) on the way to our hotel.

          Our troubles began. In Minnesota, signage is kept to a minimum. As we drew near to our assigned exit, as indicated by our directions, the road suddenly split. Two lanes went East. Two lanes went South. Both looked like interstate. One tiny sign read interstate 94 (it was, of course, located right in the middle of the split. Another sign (also right in the middle) read, “St. Cloud.” Forgetting it was actually an exit we elected to go to “St. Cloud.” I had experientially learned that once before – but it was a long time ago.

          As soon as we took the exit, I realized we had gone the wrong way. “Can we still get there this way” Sean asked. A brief consultation with the map indicated we could – in fact, if the stop lights were all green (they weren’t) it would even be faster than our original directions. All we needed to do was drive east across town and merge onto one highway. Easy. Piece of cake. Except for two things, A. the highway was running concurrently with another highway and I did not see that on the map and B. only the name of the other highway was listed on the actual road sign (Yeah, road signs in Minnesota are often as difficult to understand as Viking’s Head Coaches are). Soon 1-94 appeared. Sean, “I-94 should be ten miles that way” I said in utter disbelief. 

          Our lifes are like this both spiritually and morally. The Bible says, “All have sinned and gone astray.” Too often we are decieved by the world, by the devil, by ourselves and we go the wrong way. We disregard the directions God has given us or try to make better plans ourselves. These plans may look good for a while, but they never lead us where God wants us to go. There are many ways to St. Cloud, but there is only one way to Heaven. God tells us, in the Bible, that the way, the only way, we may be saved is by God’s grace (we don’t deserve it) through faith in His Son Jesus Christ (through believing that our sins are fully forgiven and new life is granted freely to us solely based on the merits of Jesus Christ and the work He has done on our behalf).

          After a bit of backtracking, direction reading and roadsign watching Sean and I made it to our hotel. We arrived in time to order our pizza and watch our game. All was well. We pray that you, by the grace of God, will arrive by faith to the Heavenly City Jesus is preparing.