This blog continues a discussion from this week’s Wisdom Wednesday video. We can find countless lessons in Genesis 19. There, God sent angels to lead Lot and his family out of the Sodom and Gomorrah area before God destroyed those cities and everything in them. Here are a couple of pearls of wisdom from that story.
God’s plans can make us want to hide under the covers because they are always bigger and bolder than what we think we are capable of. We “righteously” hesitate and call it building on what we have established, being humble, being cautious to make sure it’s really God, and so many other useless alibis. Lot’s wife was not the only one who did not want to leave what they had called home. The angels were urging the family to hurry and get out of the danger zone. According to Genesis 19:16, “When they hesitated, the men (angels) grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them.” Sometimes we can know God’s will and still be slow to act. Yet, God really does know the plans he has for us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us. God’s plans—even when they seem strange—are actually moving us from an unfruitful situation and into a new situation that will be better for us. God is constantly moving us forward in his greater plan, even if it looks like God is moving us into something we do not want (just like Lot). God’s love for us will not leave us where we are, even if we feel comfortable there.
Although there are so many lessons to learn from Lot and his family, here’s just one more. Destruction and promotion occur at the same time in God’s hand. For Lot and his family, their whole world was being destroyed. They had built a life in a land that was not perfect but they managed it. The daughters were engaged to be married and yet they had to leave their fiancés (Genesis 19:14) for a God they did not know, following behind their dad (who obviously was not in charge). Lot’s wife likely grieved to leave something or some certainty she had in the old town that she did not see in fleeing with nothing to an unknown place (that can be a definition of grief). Even we people of faith sometimes have to get our bearings when God is calling us to a new beginning. The old is being destroyed and we can often see that—but we cannot see the promotion that God is leading us into. How much worse it must have been for Lot and his family who were not known for being a people of faith like their uncle Abraham. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies (destruction), it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds (promotion, expanding)” (John 12:25). The dying and the producing more both happen at the same time. The world often says only one can occur at a time; but God’s way is doing both together. While watching and focusing on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot could not see that God was offering him a promotion. Don’t be like Lot; move forward. Let it die and let it live at the same time.
Don’t let Genesis 19 end here for you. Keep pulling out its lessons that enrich your life and share them with us or someone you care about. God’s Word is endless.
God bless you!
Pastor Janice Fareed-Hardy
