I've been studying the story of Abraham recently and came across the account of the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Just before the destruction, following a conversation between Abraham and God, where Abraham pleads with God to spare the cities if he finds a specific number of righteous people living in them. After a little bit of negotiating, God agrees and sends 2 angels to visit the cities, unfortunately they only find Abraham's nephew Lot and his family. The angels urge Lot and his family to leave and not to look back, but while fleeing, Lot's wife turns round to look at what was happening and she is immediately turned into a pillar of salt. Immediately that I read this, it seemed obvious that this was another case of someone who had clear instructions to go in a particular direction, looking back to where she'd come from. It might just have been a case of wanting one final look at where she'd lived, or out of concern for her friends and neighbours. or even out of wanting to witness the destruction so that she would have all the juicy gossip to share in the future. Whatever her reasons, she was ignoring the instructions that could have saved her life and would have seen her move to a place she was being sent to and she missed the blessing of God on her and her family.
We have been called to birth Time2 and we accepted that 'one way ticket' that Keith sang about, when we announced our intention to leave ngm. When the going is hard and we feel that we're stuck on our own in the desert, when we're tempted to look back to our Egypt, we have to hold on to what we have been promised. We need to continue to look for both God's provision and also his direction. I'm not saying that it's wrong to look back at the past, our stories (our testimonies) are important and we should always be willing to share these with people, but they are meant to acknowledge what God has done in and through our lives in the past. What is wrong, is the desire to live in the past, the things that happened in the past and the lessons learnt were designed to help us to grow, to develop and to be prepared for what's ahead of us.
It's not always easy, but if we're constantly looking backwards how can we see the opportunities that are ahead of us? If you are walking down a path, but rather than looking in the direction you're walking in, you're constantly looking over your shoulder at where you've been, you wouldn't be surprised if you ended up veering off the path, if you tripped over things, got hit by things, or stepped in things you'd rather avoid! We teach children when walking, to always look in the direction that their feet are pointed, it's a good lesson for all of us.
So, do I want to go back to Egypt? NO!!!!! Though I really enjoyed each different period of my life, I'm on a new adventure now! It may be scary walking through the desert and it might look as though there's no way out, but I know that the God who has always been faithful in the past is the one who is leading us now, so I am confident that he won't let us down this time.
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