I’ve never liked the Genesis 19 story of Lot’s wife getting turned into salt. Like this poor woman’s entire home went aflame and she might’ve just gotten a kitchen reno…can’t a girl cast a quick glimpse? However, upon some mild research, a.k.a. Googling during a pointless Teams call, my mind was changed. Apparently, the word “turn Back” in Hebrew means “desiring and longing for the past.” God didn’t punish this poor woman for succumbing to nostalgia, he punished her for longing after the despicable, perverse lifestyle that He was kindly rescuing her from.

Made a little more sense, and got me thinking…how many pillars of salts would be blanketing the Earth if the same phenomena happened today? How many times has God delivered us from something, or someone and we still think or act upon returning to that habit, pattern or person? How many new, fruitful seasons of life or blessings do we miss because we’re so stuck on either doing things the same way, or wishing things could be the way they used to be?

Sometimes I think we miss God’s best for us because we’re just too stuck in the past. We may be idolizing an old dream when we’re meant to go after a new one, or pining over an old, toxic flame when God’s trying to bring us a partner we actually deserve. Some of us may still working on a side hustle that’s been on financial life support for years, when God’s equipped us for a completely new calling or better venture.

I’ve just experienced this on a micro level. For a while now, I’ve been trying to get back into a teen prison ministry I’ve led for years after taking a short break. There’d been some HR changes at the facility, and I couldn’t for the life of me get a response from any of the new admins. Somewhere between the fourth “follow up email” that for sure bordered online harassment, and another PMS-infused rant to my husband (how dare they not respond?!  I’m legally allowed to be there!”) it hit me. Oh. I think God’s shutting the door.

I grappled with this thought for a while, as we all do when playing deaf to the Holy Spirit. I mean, why on Earth would God not want me to go evangelize to lost children? Maybe it’s actually the enemy’s voice, not the Lord’s? But eventually, per the usual, my density softened, and I was able to hear God more clearly, realizing that for this season, at least, I needed to be sowing more into my own teenagers’ lives. It was a less glamorous answer, and anyone with teenage boys can surely envision the pushback I received after announcing Tuesday night home Bible study….but God was right.

I bet to some extent, we’ve all been guilty of idolizing the good ole days, or thinking we’re finally in our “best era,” for good, when God patiently waits with an open armful of new purposes and adventures run after.

Think about it. How many of us have shared wild tales like heroic sea captains recanting all the things we did for God when younger and “on fire for the Lord?” How many of us feel like the best of motherhood is over, now that the kids are older and refusing to hold our hands? (I mean it IS sad!) How many of us have accepted that the best years of our marriage have come and gone, now that the flames have fizzled? Feelings of nostalgia are natural, but from all my experiences with God so far, I believe the best still is yet to come. It’s just hard to adapt to change.

I think we often limit what God has for us because we get stuck in the comfortability of life. We return to old vices, because freedom feels so foreign. Sometimes we’re blind to where God’s leading because we don’t think it’s possible, or we don’t think we deserve it.

But when walking with Jesus, life is fluid.

Every person Jesus came across in the Bible had to change course and take a new direction. Saul literally changed his identity after encountering the resurrected Christ. The Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 was asked to sin no more the moment she met him, and in Matthew 4, Peter and Andrew instantaneously left their jobs to follow Him. I bet none of those changes were easy. The Samaritan woman was living with her fifth dude at the time. Do we think the convo went well when she came home announcing she was done shacking up because a strange man said so? Do we think it was easy for Paul to declare he’d been mistakenly massacring innocent Christians, and he’d turned a new leaf?

We’re always evolving, and God is always moving. What made sense five years ago might not be the way, forever. We’re always being sanctified (the process of becoming more like Jesus), he’s always working for our good. When Jesus met the leper by the pool in Bethesba in John 5, He first asked the man if he wanted to be well. What an absurd and almost callous thing to say…unless applying Lot’s wife’s mentality to the story. Some people don’t want to be helped or saved because their too comfortable in their suffering, too enmeshed in their sin or too faithless to believe.

God might not turn us into salt pillars when we wrongfully cling to past, or disobey, but He does often keep our efforts stagnant or areas of our lives without favor, until we finally move towards His best for us. As painful as it feels in the moment, He won’t bless a relationship, entrepreneurial venture, a house hunting search, or even a ministry if he has something better for us.

Walking the Christian life requires faith, trust and action. Even in our sickness, or our depression, or our suffering, it can be difficult to accept His help and say yes to change. But God never calls or leads us towards anything that’s not one hundred percent in our best interest….even when we don’t understand in the moment. In Lot’s wife’s case, God wanted to remove her and her family out of a morally vapid community, but she still longed to remain. My guess is she desired the comforts of this world more than God. In modern day terms, Lot was a successful business owner with tons of land, so there’s no doubt Lot’s wife lived an easy, decadent life filled with lots of servants and a notable societal status.

Now, there’s almost nothing I wouldn’t do for some servants and luxury over here in my messy, burnt casserole corner of the world. But not at the cost of walking without God. Life is too short to settle for a lesser plan because it’s easier. If you’re having difficulty moving out of a season, or saying yes to what Gods calling you towards, ask Him specifically for the ability to trust. Ask Him for guidance and direction, and for a supernatural infusion of faith to help you obey.

Cheers to not looking back, and double cheers to our next “yes” with Him. It’s always worth it. xo

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