8 Lot’s Wife – When the Past Still Has Your Heart
Scripture Focus: Genesis 19:15–26; Luke 17:32
Lot’s wife is one of the most sobering figures in Scripture—not because of what she said, but because of what she did. She was rescued from destruction. She was led out by mercy. She was commanded to move forward. She was warned not to look back. And yet—she did.
As fire fell on Sodom and judgment swept through the land, Lot’s wife turned her head in one final backward glance. Scripture does not tell us exactly what she saw—but it tells us what that moment revealed: Her body was moving forward, but her heart was still behind. And she became a pillar of salt.
Lot’s wife teaches us that you can be physically delivered and still emotionally bound. You can leave a place and still long for it. You can escape destruction and still miss what God has called you away from. You can walk toward the future while your heart clings to the past.
Her backward glance was more than curiosity. It was attachment. It was longing. It was reluctance to release what God was destroying. She left Sodom—but Sodom had not yet left her.
This is the great warning of her story: What you refuse to release can still reach back and take you. She numbered among the rescued. She walked alongside the delivered. She experienced divine intervention. Yet she was immobilised by what she would not let go.
Lot’s wife reminds us that:
- Deliverance requires direction.
- Obedience requires trust.
- Escape requires separation.
God was not only rescuing them from destruction—He was rescuing them from their attachment to it. But the heart that hesitates at the threshold of freedom is vulnerable. We often think her sin was simply looking back. But at its deeper level, her struggle was loving what God had judged.
So many believers live with this same tension:
- God calls us out—but our heart still aches for what we left.
- God opens a door forward—but our eyes drift backward.
- God leads us into freedom—but familiarity still whispers our name.
Jesus later warned us with just three powerful words. “Remember Lot’s wife.” Not to condemn. But to awaken. Lot’s wife did not die because she left slowly. She fell because she loved too deeply what God had declared unsafe.
Her story gently but firmly asks each of us: What am I looking back at that God told me to leave? What do I still long for that no longer belongs in my future? What attachment might be slowing my obedience?
Her life reminds us that you cannot run toward destiny while grieving what God removed for your protection. What God pulls you from, He does so to preserve your life—not to punish you. Lot’s wife looked back once. And that one moment cost her everything. But her story still saves others— by warning us not to do the same.
