Women of the Bible

Time for another 30-Day Devotional highlight… And, since my next one is still very much a work in progress, this one will likely be the last highlight for a while. My tenth one “Women of the Bible” was originally released in May of last year. It was a project I started with great reluctance. I knew very clearly that it was the idea the Lord had given me, but I wanted a different one. (I share more of why in the introduction to the study.) Thankfully, when I stepped back a bit from the writing part of the project to proofread the first devotionals, the study caught my passion, and from that point on, I believed in the value of it and was blessed in writing it. Going back and rereading some of the devotionals to select one for this highlight made me even more grateful for an idea that I was less than enthusiastic about in the beginning and for the end result.

As usual, one of the devotionals from the study is included below, and I hope you enjoy!

Looking Back

“But [Lot’s] wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” -Genesis 19:26

Genesis 19:15-26

In our passage for today, after she and her family were literally brought out of the city by angels holding their hands and after being given the simple instructions to escape and not look back, Lot’s wife just had to turn around. She had to have one more glimpse of the city she’d called home. And, God’s judgment was instant. She became a pillar of salt. That one backwards glance cost her, her life.

Now, here’s the thing. Sodom was a city where the Lord couldn’t even find 10 righteous people. Sodom was a city so desperately wicked that the men of the city wanted to have homosexual relations with the men they didn’t realize were angels who had come to deliver Lot and his family. Sodom was a city so wicked the men of the city didn’t have a problem with Lot’s offering over his two daughters for them to rape. Their problem was that Lot, a stranger among them, was judging them. Sodom was a city so wicked, but for the angels’ intervention, these men would have killed Lot. My point: There was nothing in Sodom worth looking back at–nothing.

Yet, having been granted such mercy from the Lord, having an opportunity to be spared, Lot’s wife looked back. She evidently had liked her life there. She evidently was comfortable surrounded day in and day out by such evil. She evidently didn’t want to leave.

Even if we assign her purer motives, even if we say she looked back because there were those she loved and cared about in the city, she still blatantly disobeyed a direct command from God. He was calling her to leave that life completely and totally behind without a backwards glance, and she did not.

May we never be like Lot’s wife. When God calls us to leave our sins behind in favor of a new life, may we never look back. May we never long for the things we once did or for how things once were. When God delivers us from a bad situation or a place of evil, may we never look back at what’s not worth looking back at. May we never become comfortable with sin and evil. May we never feel at home with wickedness. May we never disregard the Lord’s commands to do as we please.

Sin’s pleasures are temporary. God’s judgment is eternal. We cannot afford to be like Lot’s wife. Looking back carries a high price.

Never look back.