When Gladys opened her own boutique, a lifelong dream had been realized. Her store featured unique and designer clothing and limited home interior items. Her husband, Rich, took a loan from his retirement account to finance the venture, and Gladys had saved for years as well. When they spotted the perfect location, everything fell into place beautifully, and she couldn’t have been happier. Initially, the store was extremely successful, and she enjoyed lots of publicity and popularity, but as we all know, the ‘new and trendy’ can fade very quickly, and in business you need a well thought out plan to handle this. Gladys had a plan but waning sales and increasing overhead costs were not in it. Things got really crazy. The challenges were so many and came so quickly that she and her husband were overwhelmed. By the time they were finally able to wrap their heads around what was happening, it was too late.
After sixteen years of marriage, Gladys and Rich were almost unrecognizable to each other when the store closed. The financial burden took a toll on their relationship, and neither of them would humble themselves to apologize to one another. Rich was devastated after losing his retirement savings, and he didn’t know how to deal with his resentment. He asked Gladys for a divorce, but she refused to give it to him. She was angry that he didn’t do more to help with the store, and she felt totally betrayed and alone when she discovered he had another sizable nest egg that she knew nothing about.
Despite her unwillingness to divorce amicably, Rich is dating someone new. Gladys will not come to grips with it, and still holds Rich totally responsible for the collapse of her dream. She doesn’t feel that he has paid the price she has, and she seems to be unwilling to let it go, and to let her wounds heal.
In Genesis 19, when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their incredible sin, God made it possible for Lot and his family to escape. They were given specific instructions in Genesis 19:17(NLT), “When they were safely out of the city, one of the angels ordered, “Run for your lives! And don’t look back or stop anywhere in the valley! Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away!” Many of us are familiar with this record, and we know that Lot’s wife did not heed the angel’s warning. Genesis 19:26(NLT) says, “But Lot’s wife looked back as she was following behind him, and she turned into a pillar of salt.”
Our Heavenly Father is all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere present. He can do anything and everything. Nothing escapes His sight, and there is no detail that He doesn’t know. He is unfathomably intelligent, and His design and plan for the universe is sheer perfection. As we contemplate His brilliance, we can’t help but notice that nothing in His design goes backwards. All of life moves forward and upward. We learn from our past, but we are never to remain stuck in it. The past is packed with lessons that we need to learn. They teach us to be thankful for God’s goodness, and to grow wiser in our choices and actions. We cannot go back in time for do-overs or repeats. Time and life progress and evolve because this is the way God designed time and life to work. He designed His Word, the Bible, to be a forward-looking book for a forward-looking people. If we miss this, we’ll miss a whole lot.
Our regrets over devastating situations can be so strong that we continually grieve for a do-ever. In and of ourselves, we don’t have the mental and emotional reserve to deal with what we perceive as a great loss. So, we ache for a repeat because in our minds, another shot would allow us to do things differently, and we would avoid the hurt that caused the big gaping hole inside. Gladys wouldn’t allow herself to come to terms with what happened. She had a dream husband and family. She had the dream house, dream car, and dream business. It had been as sweet and satisfying as she had imagined, but she lost most of it, and things collapsed like dominoes. She refused to be deeply thankful for her life and all the blessings that God had given her. Instead, regret and resentment were her dysfunctional way of still holding on to the dream, even though it had shattered into little pieces.
Many Bible scholars and theologians have speculated about why Lot’s wife looked back. Some say that she looked back because she refused to embrace what was ahead. They say her actions demonstrated her allegiance to the past and to the sin of those that were destroyed. Others speculate that it was merely curiosity that caused her to cease moving forward with her husband and family, and to turn for a last glimpse. Whatever the case, her disobedience to God’s commandment is all we need to know. She, along with her family, were specifically told not to look back, but to press forward to newness ahead. For whatever reason, Lot’s wife did not see looking and moving forward as the life-preserving and life-altering opportunity that it was.
Gladys had this same problem. Her loss was great, but the mistake she made in her relationship with God was much bigger. She saw her loss greater than she saw our God’s power, love, and willingness to restore her to a place of wholeness. This is a catastrophic error. It causes us to resist or neglect repentance. And not only this, it blocks us from hearing God’s directive which will lead us to new mercies and spiritual growth. Gladys didn’t want to move forward. She wanted a do-over. She wanted what she had before and found it very difficult to accept that her life had changed drastically, and she needed to change with it. Like Gladys, there will come a time in all our lives where we have to close the door to what once was and never look back.
The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:13-14(NLT), “13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Through Paul, God has given us a strategy for spiritual maturity. No one escapes the challenges of life, and sometimes we grow weary during the race, but we must resist the urge to look back with regret. Instead, we must trust God to renew our strength. If we continue to seek God first in all we do, our days ahead will be better than our former days. He will direct our paths and lead us to higher places of peace and joy as we lean on Him and trust Him with our whole hearts. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“When It’s Time to Close the Door” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2021. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!