Past

I will tell anyone honestly that I don’t know nearly as much about the Bible as some people do. If anything, the New Testament is much easier for me to grasp than the Old Testament. Yet there is SO much to learn from the entire bible, not just one section. Things in the Old Testament help explain things in the New Testament, just like sequels in movies. There are just certain things in the Old Testament that truly amaze me today. If I lived back then, I would have died before I became a teenager with all the things you could be stoned for and what not. But what I really can appreciate is Genesis 19.

                 Genesis 19 tells us a story of how Lot was in town and saw 2 angels that he invited into his home. After a few tries the angels finally took him up on the offer to come stay at his home and have a meal with him. Before they got ready for bed, all the men in the town showed up at Lots house. They demanded that the men in the home be brought out so that all the townsmen could rape them. Lot was completely against this idea, for these people were guests that had “come under the protection of his roof” (Genesis 19:8).  Lot even offered up his unwed daughters in place for these angels. The angels however rescued Lot from the crowd and warned him to get out of the city, because God was going to destroy it. Lot tried to grab all his family, even warning the men who were promised to his daughters, but they thought he was kidding. When they were beginning to leave one of the angels said “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away” (Genesis 19:17)!  Lot pleaded that he and his family may run to a nearby town instead, and the angels granted that wish.

This is what gets me. The Lord rained down sulfur, destroying everything on the land including the cities, people and country. Lot and his family got away. But after getting away, this is the verse that hits me so hard. Verse 26 says, But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Wow. She had to have watched this whole ordeal, with all the commotion being outside of her house. The angles gave very specific rules. Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere! But yet, when she looked back, out of natural curiosity, she turned to salt.

How many times a day do we look back at our pasts? Yes they are difficult to leave behind, but how much has God told us to leave what we had behind. “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13). “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).  Yet how many times do we actually follow the words of the gospel? I constantly condemn myself for things in my past, or for what people have done to me, or for what I feel I forgot to do. But if I had been Lots wife back in the day died because she simply looked back. I suppose it just amazes me how “good” I have it now, but one thing hasn’t changed since the beginning, God just wants us to trust that he knows what is best. Trust and obedience, that’s all.