Don’t Look Back!

As summer comes to a close, many are wrapping up road trips, weekend getaway plans, and vacation itinerations across the nation. If you've spent any time this summer on a road trip, you know one bad turn can upset everything. The driver may get worried or frustrated and the passengers get cranky!! Regardless of the GPS which misled you down the wrong road, you and your spouse disagreed on which direction to go, or you were just plain lost, there is nothing worse than having to retrace your steps and start over. But once the course has been reset, there is no reason or desire to “turn back.” When you have already gained forward motion in the right direction, don’t look back!

Looking back over your shoulder to areas in your life that really need to be left in the past can only stir up fear, resentment, unforgiveness or regret. Looking back to things that have already been dealt with can cause you to stall in forward progress.  Living a life fully alive in Christ means walking away from the dead person you once were and embracing the new creation that you now are. It's really an issue of life or death! Which do you prefer?

The idea of ‘not looking back’ settles in the origins of time. In Genesis 19 we read the story of Lot and his family. They were immersed in a sinful culture, riddled and stamped with what had infiltrated their lives as a result of the impurities around them and what they had have involved themselves with. Because of God's great mercy, though He would destroy the city in which they lived, He chose to spare Lot and his family's lives. They had special forces of Heaven, angelic escorts, who rushed them out of the city. The only instruction mandated was that they did not look back.

Genesis 19:12-17

The angels questioned Lot. “Do you have any other relatives here in the city?” they asked. “Get them out of this place—your sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone else.13 For we are about to destroy this city completely. The outcry against this place is so great it has reached the Lord, and he has sent us to destroy it.”14 So Lot rushed out to tell his daughters’ fiancés, “Quick, get out of the city! The Lord is about to destroy it.” But the young men thought he was only joking.15 At dawn the next morning the angels became insistent. “Hurry,” they said to Lot. “Take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Get out right now, or you will be swept away in the destruction of the city!”16 When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hand and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the Lord was merciful. 17 When they were safely out of the city, one of the angels ordered, “Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”

I cannot imagine the tug of war both in their mind and hearts the day they walked away from everything they knew as familiar. Lot had to be firm with his family of the impending ruin if they stayed at Sodom and Gomorrah.  His daughters surely were heartbroken at the notion of leaving their fiancés/husbands! Lot's wife didn't have time to pack, and the city where they were headed did not have a big box store to get replace all her favorite clothes or personal necessities. She would have had to process the inner conversation about leaving behind her children's mementos, heirlooms, and her dignity. But as the story unfolds, we find that her inner arguments and conversations compelled her to do the very thing she was instructed not to do.

She turned back.

(Vs 26) “But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt.

As punishment she was turned into a pillar of salt.

It is beyond me why God chose the element of salt to memorialize her disobedience. A chemical in the periodic table now stood firm within the desert of the Middle East. Had her children and husband caught frozen in their tracks at the site? How the angels must have had to move them on beyond their fear, the stunning realization that mother would not continue, while the flames were firing down from heaven to burn the city behind them.

Recently, I was faced with a personal decision. Offense had taken root in my heart, and I needed to make a choice in not only my response and my reaction, but how they both would define the outcome. As I was processing my own inner conversations, arguments and prayers to the Lord, He quieted all the words that raged within me. He encouraged me to ‘not look back.’ To not turn around. Immediately my spirit was settled, and I knew there had to be a determination in my flesh to match the understanding in my spirit. My mind immediately went to a verse in Isaiah which has always been a beautiful picture of God's love. It reads: “It was for my own peace that I had great bitterness; But You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption, For You have cast all my sins behind your back.” (Is 38:17)

 I'm not much of a sport playing girl, but I do understand that if I tried playing one-on-one basketball with the Lord to get to the sins that were behind His back, I’d lose every time.

I'm so thankful that the Lord does not look back upon the sins that He has placed behind His back. Instead, He coaxed me to looks full into His face of love and exchange my filthy rags. He clothed me in righteousness and called me His daughter.

Perhaps this summer had some roadblocks or detours where you spiritually turned back though you knew you shouldn’t have. Turn your face as flint before the Lord, you will not be put to shame,” (Is 50:7) and move forward!!

Don't look back and leave the salt for your table.