The longest way round is the shortest way home
‘We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.’ — Romans 5:3–5
‘Longest way round is the shortest way home’ — James Joyce, Ulysses
The things that matter most in life are often the things that take most time.
Or—as Joyce memorably puts it in Ulysses—the longest way round is the shortest way home.
The same, I believe, is true of the Christian life. There are no quick-fixes, cheat-codes or shortcuts in our journey of discipleship.
Sanctification is the slow work of the Spirit across years and decades—not just hours and days. The race of faith really is a marathon, not a sprint.
The ‘longest way round’, you could say, is the way God has chosen for us to experience the fullness of life He made us for—a life of ever-increasing holiness, obedience and communion with Him.
Of course, having made us right with Himself through Christ, God could have chosen to also complete His work of making us like Christ in an instant.
We might think that the ‘shortest way home’—the most convenient way—would have been for God to pick us up and pluck us from our trials, temptations and setbacks. Having saved us, He could have immediately taken us up to be with Him in eternity, where sin, suffering and death trouble us no longer.
But that wasn’t His purpose for us. Instead, mysteriously, gloriously, He chose that we would remain in this fallen world—full of disappointment, struggle and pain—for a short time until we dwell with Him in eternal perfection, peace and delight.
This reality contains both a profound challenge and an incredible encouragement for us as we step into 2026—let me explain why.
The challenge—rejoice in suffering
Consider how Paul describes the Christian life in the passage that opened this email.
Problems and trials, says Paul, shouldn’t surprise us—in fact, they are a certainty. But our response to difficult circumstances isn’t to despair as though God has abandoned us—it is to rejoice because God is working in us (Romans 5:3).
Why should we do that?
It’s not because these trials are pleasant or enjoyable. Paul himself had experienced first-hand the pain of persecution, ill-health, relational breakdown, imprisonment, poverty and disappointment.
He isn’t dismissing or brushing away the reality of our suffering. He isn’t pretending that it doesn’t hurt. Instead, he challenges us to see our suffering as the mysterious means through which God sanctifies those whom He has justified.
In a world that does everything it can to run at the first signs of inconvenience and difficulty, this exhortation to ‘rejoice’ in the midst of our problems and trials seems entirely counter-intuitive.
But Paul lifts our eyes to see the sovereign purposes of God in the midst of our troubles: ‘…for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment’ (Romans 5:3b–5a).
Can you see Paul’s argument? Through our troubles, God’s Spirit works in us to produce endurance, which produces character, which strengthens our confident hope in God. We rejoice, because through it all God is making us into people fit to dwell with Him in endless perfection and peace.
That’s Paul’s challenge—to rejoice in our suffering. But here’s the wonderful encouragement—the promise of sanctification.
The promise—sanctification
This year will likely bring its share of heartbreak and hurt—this is the reality of living in this broken world. But these things do not mean that God has abandoned you, rejected you or stopped working in you.
In fact, the opposite is true. These things are the very means through which He delights to work in you—teaching you to trust in Him, to rely on Him, to surrender every part of your life to Him in love and dependence.
If you are experiencing the storms of life right now, it doesn’t mean that God has forsaken or forgotten you. These may be the very waves and winds He is using to plunge you into the sure and steadfast rock of His merciful power.
Through suffering, He is sanctifying you—loosening your grip on the things of this world that can’t give you life, and drawing you more closely to Himself, the One who is Life Himself.
The long way round may not be the easy way. But it is better, because it is along this narrow, hard way that God is making you into the person He has created you to be—conforming you to the image of His beloved Son and producing a glory that outweighs our temporary troubles (2 Corinthians 4:17).
Through it all, we can be confident of ‘…how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love’ (Romans 5:5).
He loves you, He is with you in your suffering, and by His Spirit He is completing the work He began in you.
Rejoice, because this long road is preparing you for your eternal home.
With love,
Mike
