Was it a whisper or a shout? Was it sharp as a goad and too painful to kick against? I don’t know. I just know the Lord said, Get Out! and Abraham got out. Out of Ur, out of Haran, and finally into a land he didn’t know. The Lord said, Get Out, and Abraham got out (Genesis 11-12).
In Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis mulls over Abraham’s call to leave. Lewis says to be called out of our natural human life to God’s supernatural life is “a costly honor.” But to be “called up higher” as Abraham was “costs still more.” It means to “turn your back on all you know.” Loss, but also gain. Among Abraham’s gain was the Lord’s promise and fulfillment: “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee…and thou shalt be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2).
Yet the call to Get Out can be as hard as eating a bucket of nails. When Jesus repeated it, He warned us to sit down and count the cost (Luke 14:26-28).
Many others in Scripture received that hard call: Elijah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Peter, John, Paul, and others. They faced twists, turns, and detours; deprivation and shortfalls; beatings and shipwrecks; imprisonment and stoning; exits and entrances into new places. Yet, Paul said all was as rubbish compared to the surpassing worth of knowing and following the Lord’s call (Philippians 3:7-9). And remember, Jesus promised “a hundredfold” gain, plus “eternal life” (Mark 10:29-31).
Now, why am I writing about this Get Out topic? While studying the Abraham story in Genesis 11-12, I was also browsing through Lewis’ book. Then I picked up Oh, the Places You’ll Go by the famed Dr. Seuss — Theodor Geisel. It’s about one’s life journey, and it was Geisel’s final book before he died at age 86. Though not a Christian book, I found it both entertaining and wise. It reminded me of our own Get Out calls — mine and my husband Bill’s. Those calls have taken us through 63 years and six states. I couldn’t help but recall many friends who were called to the other side of the globe.
For you poets and artists, Seuss’ verse in Oh, the Places consists of his usual bouncy anapestic tetrameter — four da-da-DUMs per line — and his imaginative, colorful drawings. I liked those. But it’s his ideas, scattered here and there, that really grabbed me. Early he mentioned choices:
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good-street.
But reality happens, even to people “as brainy and footsy as you.” You think you’ll “be best of the best….Except…sometimes, you won’t.”
Not all things go well, Seuss acknowledged. Joseph found that out. Perhaps you remember his colorful robe, disturbing dreams of prominence, his father’s command to go and see about his brothers, the brothers’ conniving plan, and Joseph’s detour into Egypt (Genesis 37). Sometimes, we are detoured, betrayed, and “left in a Lurch.”
I’m sorry to say so but sadly, it’s true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you. Peter called them fiery trials (1 Peter 4:12). Paul said his Bang-ups and Hang-ups were the sufferings of Christ’s servant: shipwrecks, stoning, beatings, imprisonments, eight kinds of dangers, hunger, thirst, daily pressures (2 Corinthians 11:23-29).
When called to Get Out, we may suffer. Yet in 2 Corinthians Paul offered his perspective on such ordeals: “we are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (4:8-9). Joseph said his detour into Egypt turned to good (Genesis 50:20). May we say the same when we obey the Lord’s call to Get Out.
Seuss continues. At times you’ll fall “down with a unpleasant bump, and the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.” Two lines later he adds, “Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.”
It isn’t. Elijah, the hero of Mount Carmel, would attest to that. I’ve always had great sympathy for Elijah and his running, running, running. Jezebel was mean — and dangerous. She killed for pleasure. I would have run, too. I know, I know. Most biblical scholars condemn Elijah for running. I don’t. To me Jezebel’s threat was a fly-or-die situation. So, Elijah flew, without wings, about 250 miles to a cave at Horeb. I don’t blame him. Yet, and that’s a weighty YET, Elijah did fail. He did not “un-slump.”
His slump was a dark cave of self-pity. He wasn’t just afraid of Jezebel; he was excessively self-absorbed. Inside that cave, he sloshed around in self-pity as foul as a hog’s wallow. Self-pity is one aspect of what A.W. Tozer called a diseased “self-life.” Discouragement happens. But self-pity is a sinful cave we need to avoid.
Elijah’s slump began under the broom tree. “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life,” he lamented (1 Kings 19:4). The slump only grew worse. Twice in the cave he claimed, “I only, am left.” Finally, the Lord heard enough. He rebuked Elijah with a command to go — Get Out of that cave, to go to Damascus and perform three duties.
The Lord also reminded Elijah he was wrong. He was not alone. Seven thousand Israelite knees and mouths had neither bowed to nor kissed Baal. Elijah’s un-slumping finally began.
So it is with us as we follow the Lord’s command to Get Out. Jesus said not even a sparrow is forgotten, and “fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:6-7). Our reminder that Jesus never abandons us, never leaves us — ever! So un-slump.
Indecision is also a part of our obeying the Lord’s command to Get Out. As Seuss asks, “Should you go left or right?” Often, it’s not easy “for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.” And so, we end up in “The Waiting Place,” trying to decide.
Recall Abraham and Sara and the Lord’s promise of a son. Need more? Mary and Joseph, Ruth, Jeremiah, so many in The Waiting Place. We who Get Out have been there, too. But waiting is not useless. The Apostle Paul desperately wanted to go into Bithynia in the far northwest of Asia Minor, present-day Turkey, a Roman territory along the Black Sea and the Bosporus. The region likely was untouched by the gospel, so it offered a logical place to evangelize. But Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit, and so, he waited.
Seuss mentions “waiting…waiting…waiting” 19 times. But after all that waiting, he says “You’ll find the bright places.” For Paul the bright place was a dream at Troas, and an even larger field: Europe. Waiting is hard but worth it. It was for Paul. It has been for Bill and me. I haven’t enough space here to tell all those stories.
Instead, let’s check out one of David’s waiting experiences in Psalm 31. He was in distress. He begged for rescue that didn’t come. He felt forgotten, cut off from the Lord’s sight, but he waited, and ultimately affirmed his times were in the Lord’s hand. In a later Psalm, David felt assured the Lord would fulfill his purpose for him (138:7-8). Waiting and obeying give quiet strength, despite uncertainty.
Seuss also urges, “Step with care.” I’ve heard river boat captains warn new deckhands never to step into shadows when it’s dark. Shadows may prove to be deep water, not the ship’s deck. When we are called to Get Out, we will encounter the shadows, frightening dark spaces, “spaces between what we see and what we can’t,” as one Christian author said. If we cry out, I believe we will hear Jesus say, “Be of good cheer; it is I;
be not afraid” (Matthew 14:27).
Lord Jesus, help me to get out when You say, Get Out!
About the Writer: Brenda Evans lives and writes in Ashland, Kentucky. You may reach her at beejayevans@windstream.net.
