Lot

I was reading the story of Lot yesterday. Two things stuck out in this reading. First, Lot knew who these 'men' were yet, Gen. 19 v. 16 says that he hesitated when they told him to flee the city. So much so that they grasped his hand - the original language insinuates they took his hand with some force; yanked him. I pray that if I have been so close to sin for so long that I begin to wonder whether I need to get away from it when God says to, that God would forcibly remove me because He knows that in the deepest part of me, that's what I would want Him to do. You know we as Christians do place ourselves in places where we just don't belong. It reminds me of those three little monkeys I used to see when I was a kid - Hear no evil, See no evil, speak no evil. If you could do those, you would do well. We constantly place evil inside ourselves with the music we listen to - the lyrics, would Jesus sing them? We listen to gossip, it's nearly impossible for us not to hear about all the evil that goes on in our world and it weighs us down or makes us so hardened we barely blink when we hear of another murder. See no evil......what would we really put before our eyes - reading, tv, movies, etc. if we knew Jesus were looking through our eyes and grading us on it? Then there's the things we can't even avoid.. going grocery shopping and there are women wearing...well, nothing...really. Can't say much about the men.....they don't do much in the way of wearing or not wearing for the women. You know it's not how different are we from our surroundings, but how much like Christ we are.....period. What does your spiritual reflection look like?

The second thing I noticed was about Lot's wife. You know I had always been taught that Lot and his family were fleeing and as they were fleeing Lot's wife turned and looked back and became a pillar of salt. I thought that was kind of harsh of God because if I was running and started hearing rumblings and crashing behind me, I might want to turn and see the awesome sight too, just out of curiosity. However, Chapter 19 v. 22 says they could not begin destroying UNTIL Lot reached Zoar. So in v. 26 when it says she looked back and became a pillar of salt, it was not just a looking back in curiosity the language suggests it was a wistful looking, a longing, a sad, mournful look. The sun had come up over the plains, so she probably couldn't see anything happening anyway. The Bible stories always showed the family running and Lot's wife turning around as a frozen statue of salt in the middle of the vast area they were running in. But that's not the way it was. They had already reached the town of Zoar. She did not look to her husband and thank God they made it alive and then set about trying to find a place to live, she began to long for 'home'. So she became the original salt lick.