A straight road shortens the journey for the traveler. In modern times the bulldozer has straightened out many a winding road, leveled many a mountain, and filled in many a valley. But, of course, that is not what the prophet is talking about when he says “make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God.”
 
The highway to be made straight is our way of life. It is not the Lord who needs the straight path, but we. And it is not so much a straight path we need as a straight attitude.
 
Here the word “straight” stands for honesty and right living. People are sometimes urged to straighten themselves out. We know what that means: to go straight means to reform after having been dishonest. Crooked, on the other hand, stands for dishonesty, cheating, deceit, and so on. There can be a crooked way of dealing with others, a crooked attitude, a crooked way of living.
 
We find the path by acting with integrity, treating people fairly, refraining from any form of oppression, not making life more difficult for anyone, sharing with those in need. This is the way to seek God. The prophet Micah put it even more simply when he said,
 

“This is what God asks of you:

that you act justly,
love tenderly
and walk humbly with your God.”
(Micah 6:8)
 

How easy things become for the one who walks the straight path—the path of the Lord. But to walk a straight path one needs strength, wisdom, and single-mindedness.
 
If there is some crooked attitude, or some crooked way of behaving, or some crooked relationship that needs to be straightened out, let us try to do so. Then, we will truly be preparing a way for the Lord to come to us, and to come to others through us.
 
Fortunately, everything does not depend on our efforts. The Lord can come in spite of us, as the dawn comes. However, let us ask the Lord to take the blindness from our eyes, the weakness from our wills, and any hardness from our hearts, so that the world may be flooded by the grace of His Coming.