Don't Look Back

After reading a friend's blog about perspective today, I've been thinking a lot about the importance of moving on, of not getting stuck in the past. Our pasts can influence us, but they don't have to determine who we are and what we become. We are free to choose our destiny, and sometimes that involves being obedient or disobedient.

These thoughts, prompted by Christie's post, reminded me of something I wrote a few years ago about Lot's wife. Here it is:

Genesis 19:26
“But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.”
This story has always seemed crazy to me. Crazy and cruel. Crazy for her to look back after God had clearly told the family not to and cruel for God to actually turn her into a pillar of salt. But then again, Lot’s wife was human, a mere mortal just like the rest of us who don’t always do what God tells us to do. We try, but sometimes we slip and fall just like she did. Still, it seems such a minor infraction. A backwards glance, and forever she’s a chunk of sodium.

There’s got to be an explanation. Some scientists would have us believe that it never happened, and that in fact there are salt formations all over the area near the southern tip of the Red Sea. Others with no plausible explanation might say that it’s a metaphorical story. Perhaps it is, and yet I prefer to believe the actual Biblical account and keep asking myself why God was so emphatic about not looking back and why he meted out such severe punishment. After all, the ramifications of that act affected her entire family. Lot had no wife; his daughters had no mother.

I’m wondering if this story is oft repeated not only as an indication of what God can and will do if we disobey him but also because looking back is unhealthy. How can one move forward if she’s forever looking longingly at yesterday? Some people live so much in the land of Yesterday that they can’t go forward. They become pickled like the pillars of salt somewhere between Sodom and Zoar.