Focus Forward Pt. 3: Remember Lot’s Wife

The past is always pawing for our attention; It is an itch we fight to scratch, a sensational that comes out of thin air and weighs over you almost like a security blanket that instead of making us secure, suffocates us.

I’ve cautioned myself, many times this year, as I focus forward, to ignore the inklings that come to rob me of my perspective and forward motion. It was hard in the beginning because the past isn’t too far behind me. I suspect the same for you. Without God’s patience, I really wouldn’t have been able to flex the spiritual muscles necessary to discipline myself to keep going. Focus forward meant, resisting old habits, text messages, thought processes, and forms of comfort. It’s been personal. It’s been God and me every day, step by step.

But sometimes, when I get my stride, and the enemy swoops in and brings something into my life from the past to remind me of who I used to be, what I used to struggle with, or what I’ve decided to let go of and slip away. The enemy knows and he absolutely, positively does not want me or you to get too far away from our past because if he can entangle us in it, we will never move forward and live the radically grace-filled, purposeful life God’s plan for us. The enemy would prefer you, and I get caught walking around in circles remembering dead hopes and dreams, grieving broken relationships, and idolizing what could have been.

Jesus asked us to memorialize his death with the Lord’s supper. Joshua was commanded to take 12 stones of remembrance to remind generations to come of God’s sovereignty as they passed through deep waters. The prophet Habakkuk was told to “write the revelation down” as a way to remember what God has spoken.

Remembering isn’t wrong, but what we choose to remember can be.

When the angels of God came to warn Lot and his family about the condemnation of their city they lacked urgency to act on the warning. Reading this story as a child, I missed that part. I was stuck on the fire that came from heaven to consume the city. (It’s reminiscent of a Marvel movie.) As an adult, I see details I couldn’t understand when I was younger and less experienced with life and sin. The angels told Lot to get anyone he knew out of the city before it would be destroyed; they laughed it off the way a lot of us do when a friend, sermon, or even stranger chastises us and forewarns us about pending trouble.

Why did they hesitate?? Why didn’t they immediately make preparations to leave? If we’re honest, it’s the same reason many of us struggle to focus, and ultimately, move forward. We know that getting up to leave anything requires us to let go. We don’t want to let go. We want to remember the good times even though the relationship was toxic. We want to enjoy the money although the job is stressful and disruptive to our peace. We want to stay. Sit. Rest in it for a minute. Why? Because there’s a part of us that enjoys it. Whatever it is and that’s what makes it hard for us to focus forward.

The angels warned Lot again, this time more forcefully because the Bible says “he lingered.” He, like us, wanted to stay. So the angel grabs his hand and his wife’s hand and puts them outside of the city and says “escape for your life! Do not look behind you..” (Genesis 19:16) The next day, when the fire begins to fall rain from the sky, Lot’s wife responds to the itch, the pawing of the past, the urge to see — for one last time — to look back. The Bible doesn’t tell us what or who she was looking for, but we know her casual look back at what God was destroying and attempting to save her from cost her something. My fear is, every time we look back it costs us something too. For Lot’s wife, it cost her her life. For you and I, it’s often our peace, productivity, healing, and future.

There was dirt on her shoulder and a chip, too.

God saw nothing behind her but sin and destruction. Whatever she wanted to see was worth more to her at that moment than any resolve the rest of her family had to focus forward and LIVE. What’s crushing is generations later, when Jesus challenges His followers with a warning. Jesus reminds them that living life carefree and concentrate on physical gratification and possesses can cause one to lose sight of what’s spiritually essential. Jesus cautions them saying “Remember Lot’s wife.” (Luke 17:32) A woman whose name we don’t even know is all the example we need to focus forward. In glancing back at the smoldering city, her friends, her home, and her things, she lost her life and her future. Let us, as modern women of God, never turn back.

Focus forward and don’t get caught in the ashes when you can thrive in your future.