Hope for Hagar and Ishmael

Lot

The events which take place after Lot and his family flee Sodom are very strange. I haven't known what to write. Why did Lot's wife turn to a pillar of salt when she looked back towards Sodom? Why was the story of incest between Lot and his daughters considered so important that it was included in Scripture.  What are we supposed to learn from these passages?

Perhaps, Lot's wife looked back because much of her mind and heart belonged to that city.  As a result, her life was not spared.  Even in the New Testament, Jesus asks his apostles to leave everything they have and follow him.  One cannot partially follow God.  You are either giving your life to Him, or not.  Lot's wife could not fully let go of her past, and follow the Lord's messengers, so she could not be saved.

This has been the most difficult concept for me to come to terms with in reading the Bible.  It is very cut and dry.  We follow God and are saved, or turn away from him (as Lot's wife did in a very literal way) and are lost. Having once been a non-christian and having many friends with different beliefs or lack there of, it is difficult for me to think that they will not be "saved."

But when I look at my past before I became Christian, or to be completely honest, even afterwards when I didn't understand I had to live like Christ, not just pray to him,  this concept begins to make more sense. Frankly, I either overcomplicated life or was in denial of the problems my bad habits were creating.   Because they I had no idea what God could provide for me, I made decisions that lead me further away from His love. Life became hard for me because I left no room for God to act in my life.

Pastor Joel Osteen often mentions the idea of "God's favor" in his sermons, and it was not something I experienced firsthand until I started taking a few small steps back towards God.  All of a sudden, it was like whenever I took 1 step in the right direction, God took 3 towards me.  I began to see how I was meeting more loving and successful people. Now, I feel that I am always in the right place at the right time.  I trust in God to take whatever problems I have and show me how to overcome them.  That doesn't mean I never have worries.  Like everyone, I sometimes get scared either about my future or a problem.  The only difference is I give it up to God and know that since I am His child he has a great plan for me, and as long as I take action and follow Him, he will make things happen in my life.  Again, this doesn't mean bad things can't happen to good people, it only means that when we have divine guidance by our side there is nothing we cannot overcome.  Our faith and our action in working to get closer to God in all that we do, is actually our biggest tool, but before I understood this, I was lost.

I found it difficult to give up past habits and the sins that turned me away from God rather than towards him.  I was Lot's wife, looking back at the burning city, longing to still have all those things that were only making me temporarily happy.  And as I long looked back, I couldn't moved forward.  I had to let go, and now I feel saved.

The lesson is that God can only rescue us,if we want to be rescued.  If we want to follow him, then we can't look back.  We can only move forward.

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As for the incest which took place between Lot and his daughters, I could not understand why that was included in Scripture until I did a little research. The children born of Lot's daughters after this event were Moab and Benn-Ami.  They are considered to be the fathers of the Moabites and Ammonites.  Though both of these cultures are considered to have descended from the Semites, they eventually moved towards the east, and later allied with the Syrians against David and his army.  Though the Hebrews and Ammonites sometimes got along and even intermarried, many of their interactions were hostile.  This story may have been a way for Israelites to illustrate the dysfunction of the Ammonites, whom were often their enemies throughout Biblical history. 

This passage is also the last time that Lot is mentioned in Genesis.