How to init a Wizard with a particular step?

Hi all,
what I have here is an persistent workflow and I use a wizard to
visualize this workflow.

On entering my page I wanna push the wizard into a specific step
depending on my persistent workflow state/(step).

Until now I only was able to achieve this, by manually calling
wizardModel.next(); as many times I need to reach my particular active step.

(I will give a new try for calling setActiveStep(), but as far as I
remember I wasnt able todo this, Not sure, why...
Anyway...)
My main reason, I dont want to do it this way is, I have to unpack my
model-object on construction-time and I have to implement a kind of "if,
else, if else..." and I have to do this after wizard.init(wizardModel)
because the wizard resets itself. So I have to pay attention for
call-sequence etc. First init(), than next(), next(), next()...

Is there any better way to achieve this?
Maybe, I just dont see the wood for the trees...
An override of "amITheActiveStep()"-method of WizardStep evaluated by
the wizard to show an active step depending on conditions?

Thanx for feedback
Patrick