The Gospel in 'The Lorax'

Dear reader, 

I don’t know if God uses music to get your attention as he does for me. But I have to share a time when he did just that. 

Back in 1971, Dr. Seuss wrote the book “The Lorax”. If you know anything about the story you know a small orange creature called the Lorax confronts a man who wants to cut down the trees and make a product from them. 

In 2012 Illumination Studios created an animated film capturing this story, and drawing out the overarching theme of pollution and how we must band together to save the planet we inhabit. 

(SPOILER ALERT) I will be discussing the film in detail, go watch it and come back if you feel the deep need to. 

The story itself is pretty heavy on the “save the planet” theme, but there is one element of the story I want to point out. The film itself is a musical, so now and then the characters burst into a song to dramatize even further the narrative of the story. 

One of the characters the Once-ler recounts his story to Ted about how he was the one who cut down all the trees. Yet, when you first meet the Once-ler he isn’t one you would peg as a villain. 

He is pushed around, he loves hanging out with the animals of the Forest, and even his conversations with the Lorax are overall very pleasant. 

The Lorax understands his need for the tree material but tells him he needs to harvest it without cutting down the tree. The Once-ler makes that promise and follows through on it. 

But. There reaches a point in the story where the product he’s trying to sell a Thneed (A multi-purpose piece of clothing) and finally someone acknowledges its design and wants to buy it. Once one person wants it, the whole town hops on the hype train and starts practically shoving money at the Once-ler to purchase his product. 

He begins to make his Thneeds by harvesting just a small portion at a time, but his mother convinces him to go back on his word and just take out the whole tree. 

I’m sure you know where this is going. 

The Once-ler sits in his room playing his guitar trying to ignore his conscious and the Lorax outside his window. He knows he’s doing something wrong, but he quickly justifies it by singing a whole musical number titled “How Bad Can I Be?”

Those of us who are part of God’s family know that we have a sinful nature that we are still privy to. We are no longer a slave to it by God’s grace. But it still is there and we must constantly wrestle with it. 

In the song the Once-Ler’s tone and demeanor shift drastically. He sees cutting the one tree down as necessary, but then shows that if he is to succeed in business he needs to make decisions that benefit him and the company he’s creating. 

He slowly shows that he has no regard for who he’s hurting as long as he gets paid, and that hurt me tremendously as I watched (and sang along.) 

It’s so easy to look at the state of our world and acknowledge that money makes the world go round, when in reality God created the world and He is the one who guides and leads us forward. 

By no means does he want us to make dishonest actions for a business to profit. He wants us to love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind. Then to love those around us as we love ourselves. That carries over into our businesses and personal lives. 

To answer the song’s overarching question, we can be absolutely horrible. But that’s not how we are called to live. We are called to be set apart, a city on a hill, the salt and light of the world. 

What we say and do should be different than how the world operates. We don’t need to seek out wisdom from successful people in this world unless they are surrendered to God every step of the way. 

I leave you with this, are you and God on the same page in your life, business, or organization? Are you surrendered and aligned? 

Or are you singing “How ba-a-a-ad can I be? I’m just doing what comes naturally?”

Sincerely, 

Your Fellow Set Apart Fellow

-Mitchell