A Pillar of Salt

There are many notable women mentioned in the Old Testament story.  Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Zipporah, Miriam, Esther, and Ruth are a few of them.  Another who is well known but has no name is the woman known simply as Lot's wife.  As they were escaping the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, she did what she was not supposed to do.  She looked back.  "But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt."  (Genesis 10:26)  She became a salt lick for the critters of the wilderness and when the licking was done, there was no longer any sign of her.     

It is a story which has been told in many different ways by preachers of the Word.  Esther De Waal wrote in one of her books, "Lost in Wonder," that Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt because she cannot stop gazing at what she has lost.  She goes on to write that we have a choice between walking forward or looking back and clinging to what is no longer there.  As those who have often tried to go forward while looking in the rearview mirror, we know the disaster which overcomes us when we let the past become more important to us than the present.      

It is the present where we are intended to live and not the past.  When we seek to live in the past, we may not turn into a pillar of salt, but we do become immobilized which is one of the things this wilderness salt lick could symbolize. The past may give us memories that can be like a box of demons or a chest of great treasures, but it is not the place where we are to live.  God does not make Himself known to us in the past, but in the present.  It is in the present part of our life that we know His blessings.  He never called people who walked the pages of Scripture to go back.  He was always calling them to go forward which is what He is still doing with you and me.