The only thing worse than your past is a future that’s bound by the past.
In three short words, Jesus gave us a visual of this when He said, “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32). Another translation says, “Don’t forget the example of Lot’s wife and what happened to her when she turned back” (TPT).
If you don’t know the story, it’s found in Genesis, Chapter 19. Lot was the nephew of Abraham and had made his home in a town called Sodom. The Bible says the wickedness in Sodom was immense (Genesis 18:20). After much outcry, God sent two angels to destroy the city but first gave Lot and his family a chance to leave. Their only instruction was, “Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed” (Genesis 19:17).
Unfortunately, Lot’s wife didn’t heed the warning. The Bible says she looked back and became a pillar of salt (vs. 26). The terror and trauma of Sodom (her past) was horrible. But sadly, her future was forever bound by the past she was running from but couldn’t look away from.
Our Lesson
Thankfully, we now live in the dispensation of grace so no one is in danger of physically turning into a pillar of salt, but I know many people whose past has made them immovable. What I mean is, although they are technically going to work, raising a family, and getting older, they are stuck– stuck and crippled by their past.
God sent Jesus to set us FREE but if we choose to look back, allowing our thoughts to continually wander to places Jesus redeemed us from, then our freedom is extremely limited. But if, on the other hand, we look forward, setting our gaze and attention on Christ (and Christ alone), we will live free of our past.
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you” (Romans 12:1-2, MSG).
Is it that easy? No, I didn’t say it would be– but easy and necessary aren’t the same thing. In order to thrive in the future God planned for you, you have to forego “easy” and embrace “necessary.”
God made this promise: “For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). But this promise isn’t automatic. He also said, “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. and you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (vs. 12-13). Notice our past isn’t mentioned in these verses at all. Instead, the emphasis is on intentionally searching for (and finding) God.
I’m not minimizing the past. I’m simply here to remind you, you can’t go back but you can go forward and change the future.
