Getting Out vs. Entering In

This morning I was praying, talking to God, about how a lot of my thoughts lately have been focused on getting out of this mess of a world - getting out of the pain, the ugliness, the death, the temptations, the circumstances I don’t like, the sin... And I realized that I have been thinking more about getting out than entering in.

Obviously you have to get out of something in order to enter into something else. As a child I remember being frustrated because I had inadvertently put my pants on before my underwear. Maybe it is more work for a 4 yr old to get dressed, or maybe it was my laziness... but I did not want to take off my pants to put on my underwear and then have to put my pants on again. (You are about to discover why Toni wears dresses all the time! ha ha ha ha ha!)

So, I tried to put on my underwear over my pants. I was just sure that I could somehow get those underwear to go “underthere,” where they belonged. I pulled them on over my pants and tugged and twisted them around and went through all sorts of contortions to try to get those underwear to go inside the pants. I remember being SO frustrated: “The pants have a hole for the waist and two holes for the legs. So do the underwear... Why won’t this work?!!” I was in tears by the time Mom convinced me that I had to get out of the pants before I could get in to the underwear.

It is important to see our need to get out of our sin, out of this mess of a world, out of the temptations... “outta here!” But we also need to focus on entering in. I realized this morning that I’m running away from this world more than I am running to my God.

Does anyone run a race as if they were running away from the starting line? It made me laugh to think of that. Imagine someone running at top speed, constantly looking back at the starting line as if escaping from it! No, we don’t run away from starting lines; we run toward the finish lines.

Hebrews 3 & 4 came to mind. The Israelites were getting out of the slavery and idolatry of Egypt. No doubt they thought about “getting out” a lot. (You can read the history of this in the book of the Bible called “ The Exodus.”) But most of them had few, if any, thoughts about “entering in” -- into the service and worship of God. (notice the next book is not called “The Entering.”) They were running away from Pharaoh, but they were not running to God.

...“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest”... Hebrews 4:11 What if I would spend as much time seeking God as I spend seeking to get away from sin? What if I thought about entering into the Promised Land as much as I think about getting out of this mess of a world?

I see now that both getting out and entering in are equally important. And I am thankful for the privilege to run full-speed; not merely with heart-pounding fear as I run to escape from sin, but also with heart-pounding anticipation as I run toward the arms of God.