“Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord. For ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight: for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rearward. Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, he shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high.” (Isaiah 52:11-13). A successful escape attempt relies on preparation and timing. Trying to escape in a rash or hasty manner, especially when motivated by anger or fear or frustration, is unlikely to achieve the desired results. In The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantes and Abbe Faria spend years slowly and patiently carving a tunnel out of the rock. There is a right and a wrong way to escape from captivity. Like the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, we don’t want to go plucking up all of the Tares before the wheat has had a chance to take root and grow. So often we are cursed with a greater perception of our faults and our flaws than we have the capacity at present to fix or improve. Trying to fix everything all at once is the very definition of acting with haste. We can learn a lot from the story of the tortoise and the hare. Small and slow yet deliberate and consistent steps in the right direction will do more good for us in the long run than manic and frenzied bursts of activity immediately preceding periods of exhaustion and burnout. We should depart from all that is unclean and go out from the midst of everything that is keeping us from feeling the constant companionship of the Spirit, but we should not do so in haste. The gospel is not a sprint but a feat of endurance. We will not receive a greater reward for finishing sooner, nor is finishing sooner even possible. As long as we are headed in the right direction and dealing prudently with the challenges that are before us, we will be extolled and exalted on high.
