11/01/2023
Sorry for long read
*DON'T LOOK BACK*
It was the longest starless night of his life as he lay awake in a frozen chill somehow unable to rest.
The creepy feeling of the wicked men who surrounded his house a few hours earlier tightened his chest.
He had seen the worsts of evil around him and every day his soul was vexed but what he witnessed boggled his tired mind. He never imagined even in another lifetime that he could give away his two virgin daughters to men whose carnal appetites were beyond extreme, just to protect two strangers in his house from being sodomized.
Cast in the shadows was his beautiful wife in an undisturbed sleepy sprawl in bed.
Darkness was slowly exiting the skies and ushering the break of dawn but an explosion of rays from the sunny horizon only meant one thing. A deafening gloom was about to visit sin city.
He quickly got up as the two strangers urged him to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, and run.”
An awful headache was not going to stop him as he head-butted everything around in trepidation. They needed to move quickly. There was no time to pack clothes, no bags to carry all the gold and silver in the safe and no marching orders for the herders to move all their livestock.
Lot had not prepared for this early departure.
S***m and Gomorrah were part of five cities of the lush Jordan valley. So attractive and well-watered was this green and vibrant plain that its extraordinary beauty was compared to the garden of Eden. He chose this place after separating from his uncle Abram. He now regretted settling down here.
Lot lingered as the men took a hold of his hand, his wife’s hand and the hands of his two daughters and brought them out of the city in haste.
Lots wife was the crown jewel in his glorious world and she knew it. She was always dressed for every occasion but this was not a planned trip out of the city. The chirping of birds in the trees, the whistling of grasshoppers, the mooing of cows in the fields was like an awkward film soundtrack introducing a doomsday scene.
Lots wife was used to doing makeup and dressing up before stepping out. This unexpected journey didn’t give her enough time to even wear her precious gemstones and it bothered her. The wealth they had accumulated over the years was going to turn into ash and it troubled her.
Her feet scuffed along the rocky ground and before she could end her train of thought, the pungent smell of burning sulphur was in the air. The rumblings in the heavens were loud.
So it came to pass when the angels had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you.”
God didn’t want them to delay His move.
Delay is the deadliest enemy of progress.
Time and growth are cousins and God will use them to bring you into your season this year.
Remember when He told Sarah, “Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life and you shall have a son.” – Genesis 18:14
The precondition for the promise in your life is denying yourself the short term pleasure to look back so that you can look forward and enjoy the great reward of trusting in His word that will surely come to pass.
God had two visitations on this day. In S***m it was destruction, for Lots family it was favor. The same God, but two different manifestations.
S***m and Gomorrah represent that place in your life where you are now but shouldn’t be.
S***m and Gomorrah is that attractive place where you feel comfortable but the evil around you will choke the flow and move of God in your life.
S***m and Gomorrah is the green pasture that promises fulfillment but in the end, it only attracts fire and brimstone.
S***m and Gomorrah is that place in your life where everything looks fine but your soul is tormented every day by the wickedness around you.
If you stop to look back at everything that you left behind in S***m and Gomorrah, or things that didn’t work out last year or where you think you failed, you will slow your pace and stagnate.
The angels told them “Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there” – Genesis 19:22
In other words, God was telling Lot, unless you move, I cannot move. Unless you step out, I cannot step in.
But where was God telling Lot to go? To the mountains. But he chose Zoar, the next city and he tried advising God saying, “See, now this city is enough to flee to and it is a little one please let me escape there.” – Genesis 19:20
*Many people have settled on the plains of S***m while they are supposed to live on the mountaintop.*
*Many people have opted for Zoar, the little place, while God wants you to move to the mountains.*
Don’t settle in S***m, go for the mountains.
Don’t flee to Zoar, go for the mountains.
His wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
Everything was ok until she turned her head. She crystallized into a rock of salt right in front of her husband.
Her protection was not behind her but in front of her.
God didn’t promise to cover her back but promised to move her forward if she didn't look back.
*Your past is not God’s future for you. He says, 'I have plans to give you a future and a hope.'*
The first time Lot lingered in the house, he delayed his entire family forcing the angels to grab their hands and brought them out, “the LORD being merciful to him,” Genesis 19:16
Delaying because you are reluctant to move will deny you the opportunity to experience the fullness of the present and the abundance of tomorrow. This will not just affect you but even the people who are waiting for you.
