Lots wife’s story is one that will always resonate within me.
It was one of the first bible stories I ever memorised because my young mind couldn’t completely grasp how a human being became a pillar of salt, but it still doesn’t beat the story of Jonah in a fishes belly for 3 days…
From the few verses that talk about lots wife, I could already see the kind of woman she was and the kind of relationship she might have had with her family.
She must have been a strong melancholic who was almost a perfectionist and wanted the best always for herself and her family.
Going back to when Abraham and Lot were going separate ways after they left where God called Abraham from, the bible records that when they saw they couldn’t live together as a result of their growing families and possessions, Abraham asked Lot to look towards the ends of the 2 lands and decide where he wanted to go. In Abraham’s words, “choose where you’ll go and whichever you decide to take, I’ll go with the other”.
After reading the few verses with Lots wife present, I’m forced to think that she possibly would’ve been a key influencer in her husbands decision to go with the plains of Jordan as he decided to go with. Remember the bible records that “He saw..”. Meaning that he and his family based which land would be better from the mere sight at that point.
Because of her perfectionist nature, I assume her house must have been a sight to behold (whatever that looked like in those days),coupled with the fact that Lot was an affluent man, asides having the money to buy all the buyables, he had His wife who could so perfectly arrange and design their home to what it probably looked like.
But in all of her glory, she wasn’t a listener. If she was a believer of today, she would’ve been one of the people who say things like “if God doesn’t tell me, I will not do”.
You know the funny part, majority of we Christians are at that place, where we’ve disqualified the possibility of God speaking through people and only will take seriously what we say we hear from God directly.
While it is a good thing to hear expressly from God, fact remains that God still uses people to speak, our action should be more for spiritual sensitivity to discern what people tell us, rather than against the thought that God can speak to us through others.
The men (angels) who came to move Lot must have had the toughest time convincing that woman of what was to happen.
The bible records that they hesitated and the angels even had to apply a little force.
But there was ‘supposed victory’, they finally agreed to go and the least of all the instruction given to them through the entire journey was what brought her to become a reference to the world on something as funny as a bag of salt.
Lots wife had already been through the painful part of leaving her home all that she had and even agreeing to go with them, what again could she have been looking back for?
I reckon that even if God had spared her life after her looking back, she would hurt even more than she was already hurting, knowing she was off to start life again somewhere with her family (that never happened).
Her story reminds us that God speaks through people, a lot of people might say “they were angels” but sometimes we’re the angels God sends on errands.
I learnt to be a better listener and be obedient even with the smallest instruction.
It’s tough trust me but we can!
fochwoman 