On the Run of My Life

Last week, we discussed forgiveness. If you watched the Youtube portion of the devotional. By the way, if you haven't subscribed to my Youtube channel (Young, Saved, and Free) make sure you do that and turn on your notifications. That was my shameless plug for the day .

Anyway, I mentioned in the video completely unintentionally on my part, I mentioned that you can't allow God to do something new in you, but you still want to hold on to the old. It don't work like that, homes. It just doesn't. So when God placed it on my heart to talk about this, He told me to go to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Genesis 19:1-9 New International Version (NIV)

Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed

19 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.”

“No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”

3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

9 “Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

In this text, these people were literally waiting on Lot at the door like....


Like they had alllllllllll the time that night, but what's crazy is Lot wasn't trying to hearing none of that. What really impressed me about Lot is in spite of all of that, he made it his assignment to protect the angels. If you ask me, Lot was bout that life. Scripture says that all  the men, not just a couple of local thotties. The whoooooooole city was at the door. Lot didn't back down not even a little bit. 

Not only was Lot willing to protect them, but he was willing to sacrifice his own daughters for the angels. I'm not a mother, but I know what it is like to get attached to something growing inside of you. You want to protect it no matter what. So the idea of sacrificing him or her seems completely out the picture. That's a different level of trust in God. If you remember, Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac. God sacrificed his only begotten son not because Jesus wanted to die, but because He was on assignment. 

Genesis 19:13-21 New International Version (NIV)

13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.”

14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry[a] his daughters. He said, “Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!” But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”

16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountainsor you will be swept away!”

18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords,[b] please! 19 Your[c] servant has found favor in your[d] eyes, and you[e] have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”

21 He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of.

Because Lot was faithful to his assignment, the angels are faithful to him. He didn't let what was in front of him take him back to where he used to be. Everyone looks at Sodom and Gomorrah to be the mark of God punishing the people and starting over, kind of like He did with Noah. But to be honest, the change started in Lot first. I've mentioned this before, but there have been time on my walk with Christ where I literally would sit God to the side and handle whatever was going on in front of me at that time. Lot didn't do that. Not only was he faithful to his assignment, but he was faithful to his growth in Christ. Because of that, God was doing a new thing not only in Sodom and Gomorrah but also in Lot. 

When Lot couldn't fight no more, the angels took over. Bible says

Psalm 105:15 New International Version (NIV)

15 “Do not touch my anointed ones;
    do my prophets no harm.”

I don't know if God was already going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. It might just be coincidental that the angels said they were going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah right after everybody came at Lot crazy. 

Genesis 19:22-29 New International Version (NIV)

22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.[a])

23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the Lordrained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.

29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Any who, the text goes on, and God is testing Lot's trust once again. The angels told Lot that Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed. That's the only place Lot has really known. He sent them on the run of their life, literally. 

Sometimes, when God is taking you to a new place, He's looking to see if you'll be obedient even if that means taking you away from everything you've ever known. You have to trust that God is going to do a new thing that is best for you. 

God will never take something from you and not give you something better. He doesn't work that way. It may not always seem better, but it is better. I look at my own life, and moving back home seemed to be the worst decision I ever made, but it was that move that positioned me to learn the things I needed to learn to do the things that God called of me (For more on that check out my IGTV @youngsavedandfree). 

We can't move forward to something new, looking back. That's why Lot's wife had to go. She looked back. She was going to be salty either way. What if the place where God told Lot to go was not what she thought it was going to be? She was going to be salty because she had to leave her old life and settle for wherever she was. That salt was already forming when she looked back so God just nipped it in the bud. 

Sometimes you just have to let the past be the past and move forward to something new. You will never be able to accept and appreciate the new if you don't let go of the past.