Genesis 19:23-28: a reflection

23The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. 24Then the LORD rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of the sky. 25He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. 26But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt. 27Abraham went up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD. 28He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.

As God destroys Sodom, Lot and his family are led out to safety, with one urgent instruction: flee, and do not look back. But Lot's wife, fleeing behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. In that one backward glance, she was lost. Her body was leaving Sodom, but her heart, it seems, was still there, lingering on what she was being told to leave behind. And that lingering look cost her everything.

Notice what her backward glance reveals. It was not mere curiosity; it was a heart still attached to what God was calling her to leave. She had been rescued, brought out of the doomed city, set on the road to safety, and yet she turned back, unable to let go, her heart still in Sodom. Jesus himself would later say simply, Remember Lot's wife, as a warning against the divided heart that clings to what must be left behind.

There is a searching caution here about the pull of what God calls us to leave. When God is leading us out of something, an old life, a sin, a way of being, the danger is not always outright refusal but the lingering look, the heart that keeps turning back toward what we are supposed to be leaving, unable to let it go. Lot's wife was on the road out, but her heart stayed behind, and it undid her. When God calls you to leave something, do not keep looking back. Set your heart forward, toward what he is calling you to, and do not let a lingering attachment to what you are leaving pull you back. Remember Lot's wife.

Lord, Lot's wife was rescued and set on the road to safety, but she looked back, her heart still clinging to what she was called to leave, and it undid her. When you are leading me out of something, an old life, a sin, a way of being, keep me from the lingering backward look, the divided heart that keeps turning toward what I should be leaving. Help me set my heart forward, toward what you are calling me to, and not let attachment to the past pull me back. Remember me, and keep me moving toward you.