Remember Lot's Wife - Luke 17:20-37

The Pharisees are back causing trouble again. They “demanded” that Jesus tell them, “when the kingdom of God should come.” This is another instance where I have a really difficult time understanding what is going on here and it seems that any time that Jesus speaks outside of a parable for a sustained period of time; the words just seem so abstract. Jesus answers, “the kingdom of God is within you.” This is one of those statements that makes you stop and think, but really there is no definitive answer, and yes, we can have a conversation all day long about how the kingdom of God is within us, but when establishing basic gospel truths, this isn’t necessarily something that you start with. The IM clarifies saying, “Many translations of the New Testament render the phrase ‘the kingdom of God is within you’ as ‘the kingdom of God is among you’ because the pronoun you is plural in Greek. The Joseph Smith Translation changes this phrase to read, ‘The kingdom of God has already come unto you.’… The Prophet Joseph Smith defined the ‘kingdom of God’: ‘Some say the kingdom of God was not set up on the earth until the day of Pentecost, and that John (the Baptist) did not preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; but I say, in the name of the Lord, that the kingdom of God was set up on the earth from the days of Adam to the present time. Whenever there has been a righteous man on earth unto whom God revealed His word and gave power and authority to administer in His name,…there is the kingdom of God.’”

This has always made sense to me, that if God put Adam on the earth to start the human family, if Adam and Eve were initially in the Garden of Eden, then they would have had the gospel. Maybe that’s the benefit we have of knowing the gospel, we can see from the beginning. Another reason why I know that the gospel was established on the earth before the day of Pentecost is because we have the Book of Mormon. Nephi starts the record in 600 B.C. and he knows the gospel even back then, and it’s taught throughout the timeline of the Book of Mormon in its fullness. The JST of Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees takes it from conceptual to practical, from “let’s think about this” to “let’s pray about this and discover the truth through what we already have.” How is it even possible that kingdom of God didn’t come until Pentecost? Jesus himself was on the earth teaching the gospel for several years before that time, and what was Jesus doing if not establishing the kingdom of God on the earth.

Jesus gives signs of the second coming, but recognizes first that “he must suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.” He’s telling them plainly about the atonement, but they don’t understand what he’s saying. Jesus recounts times when the “world ended” for many people and they just didn’t see it coming. The people in the days of Noah, who were just living their lives, albeit wickedly, and then suddenly their world ended. We know that the Lord didn’t just destroy them out of no where for no reason, he sent messengers, prophets to preach repentance to the people. It seemed like out of the blue for the people, but in God’s eyes, he gave them plenty of chances.

Jesus says that when the Lord comes again, don’t go back into the house to get you stuff, let him likewise not return back. Remember Lot’s wife.” The story of Lot’s wife is another account that I just can’t understand. Lot was Abraham’s nephew who lived in the infamous city of Sodom. As the only righteous man left in the city, angels came to him and commanded him to “escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.” Lot finally did leave the city and God rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah “but his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Talk about visualization. This has always bothered me because I picture a family running away from a city and hearing explosions in the background and, being alarmed by the noise, turn around to see what happened, and them just dissolving into salt and laying in a pile on the ground. It is natural for people to look at a loud noise to make sure that they are safe, to see if they need to change what they are doing in order to avoid a disaster, in fact I go so far as to say that it is instinctual. So I imagine this poor lady instinctively turning around to face a loud noise and being destroyed, like that doesn’t make any sense, that’s something from a horror movie where these sadistic people play games with other people’s lives. This makes God look petty and vindictive, and I know that he’s not like that, but statements like what happened to Lot’s wife really do a disservice to Him.

One of the books that I read, I think it’s an Orson Scott Card book called “Sarah” or something like that, and in the book Lot’s wife is Sarah’s younger sister I think. When the angels came to tell Lot to leave the city, she procrastinated as long as possible, and she ended up leaving the city, but then going back after a few hundred feet because she forgot some of her jewelry or something but it was too late and she was trapped and destroyed in the city. That made sense to me, another explanation I heard once was that the “pillar of salt” statement means that she died and that when she decomposed she turned in to salt because that’s what decaying bodies do.

The IM quotes Elder Jeffrey R. Holland as asking, “What did Lot’s wife do that was so wrong?... Apparently what was wrong with Lot’s wife was that she wasn’t just looking back; in her heart she wanted to go back. It would appear that even before they were past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom ad Gomorrah had offered her… It is possible that Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind… So it isn’t just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin… The past is to be learned from but not lived in… When we have learned what we need to learn and heave brought with us the best that we have experienced, then we look ahead, we remember that faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings ad truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives. So a more theological way to talk about Lot’s wife is to say that she did not have faith. She doubted the Lord’s ability to give her something better than she already had. Apparently she thought- fatally, as it turned out- that nothing that lay ahead could possible be as good as those moments se was leaving behind.”

This really hit home for me, as this is what I’ve been struggling with recently. I’m not going to lie, but move to Utah has been rough, this whole last year, ever since I got up here has just been one kick in the face after another, and I’ve really struggled with moving past it. I’ve wanted to go back to California almost since the day I moved up here, but it was so obvious that I was supposed to move to exactly where I am. The signs were all there, I prayed about it, the Spirit told me that this is what I was supposed to do, the pieces all lined up perfectly. But it’s been difficult, just with everything that happened that I hadn’t foreseen as even being a possibility, and I’ve just wanted to go back to what I knew and my friends and my money, and all that. So instead of “turning back” like Lot’s wife did, I didn’t physically go back, but emotionally I can’t move forward. What Elder Holland said about Lot’s wife’s lack of faith is exactly what I sound like. And it’s not that I doubt the Lord’s ability to give me something better than I already had, it’s just that I have a hard time believing that he will give me something better. I feel like my whole life has just been one suck and Jesus is saying, “it’s good for you, it builds character.” And I’m really tired of it.

I’m feeling sorry for myself right now, but let’s think about why I’m wrong. My whole life hasn’t been terrible, I have many blessings. I have the gospel, I have my health (kind of), I have friends, I have my children, I have my family, I have my dogs, I have a great job, I have a great place to live, we have beautiful weather. I know that God can do anything, he’s worked miracles in my life, I’ve seen it happen. And I know that when I experience trials, they are only the ones that I personally need to help me grow spiritually and become closer to him. I know this, but still struggle when the trials come. But I know that with God’s help I can get through the trials and that I can be happy. I just need to stop feeling sorry for myself and start praying more, tell Jesus everything, that’s what wil help.