This morning my older girls and I read about the destruction of Sodom in Genesis 19. As we were discussing the fate of Lot's wife, my ten year old asked incredulously, "Why did she look back?!" My eleven year old spoke up before I could answer, "She had daughters there! It would've been hard not to look back." Through all the times that I've read this account and all the sermons I've heard on Lot's wife, I've always felt just the way my ten year old did, incredulous at the lack of faith that caused her to disobey God. I was always quick to disassociate myself from Lot's wife, but my eleven year old made me realize today that she's more relatable than I thought. Her sin was great to be sure, great enough that it cost her life, but what if those were my girls being destroyed with Sodom? Matthew 10:37 is a hard teaching, but God does require our complete commitment. We cannot serve God and the world, even when the world includes loved ones (Matthew 6:24). Incidentally, in looking back toward her older daughters, Lot's wife set her young ones up to commit grievous sins of their own. Had she obeyed and survived the escape from Sodom, her daughters probably wouldn't have seduced their father. No, her obedience couldn't have saved the ones left behind in the doomed city, but it could have saved her husband and surviving daughters from the costly sin of incest (and later Israel from the affliction of the Moabites and Ammonites that were born of that incest). In the chapter on Lot's wife and daughters in Women of the Genesis, Cindy Colley says "Sin's consequence is always worse than the sinner expects it to be." Conversely, hard as it may be at times, remaining faithful to God is always best for everyone involved and the reward will be great!
...he that endureth to the end shall be saved." (Matthew 10:22)
-CA