Why Lot’s Wife Really Looked Back
“Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32).
Someone told me one time that the reason Lot’s wife looked back is because she thought she left the iron on. Jokes aside, methinks it was a sign of something even worse.
Faith provides little by way of immediate gratification. A spiritual life is a long-game. Spiritual seeds take time to germinate, sprout, bud, bloom, and bear fruit. We are such impatient creatures.
Faith will choose temporary misery now for gratification later – even if or when that later may not even include this lifetime. That is not easy.
At the same time, it is a fact that choosing the opposite has never ultimately panned out. Not once. Every person who has chosen their own way rather than God – even if it worked out well for today, tomorrow, and the next day – has eventually found themselves embarrassed at the bottom of balance sheet, even if that embarrassment is not in this lifetime.
Every person who has chosen God’s way – even when it made little obvious sense and cost tremendously – was rewarded, gratified, and glorified God for His faithfulness, here, and hereafter.
We have to keep asking ourselves, “Am I trying to play God? Or am I letting God be God?” (see: Psa. 46:10).
Many courses of action, many inactions, many bad attitudes and poor behaviors are reflections of our faithlessness:
- “God, I just can’t trust that you have something better in store.” Or,
- “If I relinquish control, I’ll be stranded and embarrassed!” Or,
- “What if it turns out that I can’t trust You after all?”
Those who “save” their lives [i.e., the right to live their lives as they please here, and now], will “lose” them, while those who “lose” their lives [i.e., forego their right to live their lives as they please, trusting God instead], will have all.
“No man…looking back…is fit for the kingdom…" (Luke 9:62).
"Remember Lot’s wife" (Luke 17:32).
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