Remembering Lot’s Wife: Faith Is for the
Future by Elder Jeffrey R Holland 13 January 2009 https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland_remember-lots-wife/
The start of a new
year is the traditional time to take stock of our lives and see where we are
going, measured against the backdrop of where we have been. I don’t want to
talk to you about New Year’s resolutions, because you only made five of them
and you have already broken four. (I give that remaining one just another
week.) But I do want to talk to you about the past and the future, not so much
in terms of New Year’s commitments per se, but more with an eye toward any
time of transition and change in your lives—and those moments come virtually
every day of our lives.
As a scriptural theme
for this discussion, I have chosen the second-shortest verse in all of
holy scripture. I am told that the shortest verse—a verse that every missionary
memorizes and holds ready in case he is called on spontaneously in a zone
conference—is John 11:35: “Jesus wept.” Elders, here is a second option,
another shortie that will dazzle your mission president in case you are called
on two zone conferences in a row. It is Luke 17:32, where the Savior cautions,
“Remember Lot’s wife.”
Hmmm. What did He
mean by such an enigmatic little phrase? To find out, I suppose we need to do
as He suggested. Let’s recall who Lot’s wife was.
The original story,
of course, comes to us out of the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, when the Lord,
having had as much as He could stand of the worst that men and women could do,
told Lot and his family to flee because those cities were about to be
destroyed. “Escape for thy life,” the Lord said, “look not behind thee
. . . ; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed” (Genesis
19:17; emphasis added).
With less than
immediate obedience and more than a little negotiation, Lot and his family
ultimately did leave town, but just in the nick of time. The scriptures tell us
what happened at daybreak the morning following their escape:
The Lord rained upon
Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
And he overthrew
those cities.
[Genesis 19:24–25]
Then our theme today
comes in the next verse. Surely, surely, with the Lord’s counsel “look not
behind thee” ringing clearly in her ears, Lot’s wife, the record says, “looked
back,” and she was turned into a pillar of salt.
In the time we have
this morning, I am not going to talk to you about the sins of Sodom and
Gomorrah, nor of the comparison the Lord Himself has made to those days and our
own time. I am not even going to talk about obedience and disobedience. I just
want to talk to you for a few minutes about looking back and looking ahead.
One of the purposes
of history is to teach us the lessons of life. George Santayana, who should be
more widely read than he is on a college campus, is best known for saying,
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (Reason in
Common Sense, vol. 1 of The Life of Reason [1905–1906]).
So, if history is
this important—and it surely is—what did Lot’s wife do that was so wrong? As
something of a student of history, I have thought about that and offer this as
a partial answer. 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 and Gomorrah had offered her. As Elder Maxwell once said, such
people know they should have their primary residence in Zion, but they still
hope to keep a summer cottage in Babylon (see Larry W. Gibbons, “Wherefore,
Settle This in Your Hearts,” Ensign, November 2006, 102; also Neal A.
Maxwell, A Wonderful Flood of Light [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1990],
47).
It is possible that
Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking
her to leave behind. We certainly know that Laman and Lemuel were resentful
when Lehi and his family were commanded to leave Jerusalem. 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.
So, as a new year
starts and we try to benefit from a proper view of what has gone before, I
plead with you not to dwell on days now gone, nor to yearn vainly for
yesterdays, however good those yesterdays may have been. The past is to be
learned from but not lived in. We look back to claim the embers from glowing
experiences but not the ashes. And when we have learned what we need to learn
and have 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 and 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 possibly be as good as those
moments she was leaving behind.
It is here at this
moment in this little story that we wish Lot’s wife had been a student at BYU
enrolled in a freshman English class. With any luck, she might have read, as I
did, this verse from Edwin Arlington Robinson:
Miniver Cheevy, child
of scorn,
Grew lean while he
assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was
ever born
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days
of old
When swords were
bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a
warrior bold
Would set him
dancing.
Miniver sighed for
what was not,
And dreamed, and
rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes
and Camelot,
And Priam’s
neighbors. . . .
Miniver cursed the
commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit
with loathing;
He missed the
medieval grace
Of iron clothing. . .
.
Miniver Cheevy, born
too late,
Scratched his head
and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and
called it fate,
And kept on drinking.
[Miniver Cheevy
(1910), stanzas 1–3, 6, 8]
To yearn to go back
to a world that cannot be lived in now; to be perennially dissatisfied with
present circumstances and have only dismal views of the future; to miss the
here-and-now-and-tomorrow because we are so trapped in the
there-and-then-and-yesterday—these are some of the sins, if we may call them
that, of both Lot’s wife and old Mr. Cheevy. (Now, as a passing comment, I
don’t know whether Lot’s wife, like Miniver, was a drinker, but if she was, she
certainly ended up with plenty of salt for her pretzels.)
One of my favorite
books of the New Testament is Paul’s too-seldom-read letter to the Philippians.
After reviewing the very privileged and rewarding life of his early years—his
birthright, his education, his standing in the Jewish community—Paul says that
all of that was nothing (“dung” he calls it) compared to his conversion to
Christianity. He says, and I paraphrase: “I have stopped rhapsodizing about
‘the good old days’ and now eagerly look toward the future ‘that I may
apprehend that for which Christ apprehended me.’” Then comes this verse:
This one thing I do,
forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things
which are before,
I press toward the
mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. [Philippians
3:13–14]
No Lot’s wife here.
No looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah here. Paul knows it is out there in the
future, up ahead wherever heaven is taking us where we will win “the prize of
the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
At this point, let me
pause and add a lesson that applies both in your own life and also in the lives
of others. There is something in us, at least in too many of us, that
particularly fails to forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life—either
mistakes we ourselves have made or the mistakes of others. That is not good. It
is not Christian. It stands in terrible opposition to the grandeur and majesty
of the Atonement of Christ. To be tied to earlier mistakes—our own or other
people’s—is the worst kind of wallowing in the past from which we are called to
cease and desist.
I was told once of a
young man who for many years was more or less the brunt of every joke in his
school. He had some disadvantages, and it was easy for his peers to tease him.
Later in his life he moved away from his community. He eventually joined the
army and had some successful experiences there in getting an education and
generally stepping away from his past. Above all, as many in the military do,
he discovered the beauty and majesty of the Church and became very active and
happy in it.
Then, after several
years, he came back to the town of his youth. Most of his generation had moved
on, but not all. Apparently when he returned quite successful and quite reborn,
the same old mind-set that had existed before was still there, waiting for his
return. To the people in his hometown he was still just old “so and so”—you
remember the guy who had the problem, that idiosyncrasy, this quirky nature,
and did such and such and such and such. And wasn’t it all just hilarious?
Well, you know what
happened. Little by little this man’s Pauline effort to leave that which was
behind and grasp the prize that God had laid before him was gradually
diminished until he died about the way he had lived in his youth. He came full
circle: again inactive and unhappy and the brunt of a new generation of jokes.
Yet he had had that one bright, beautiful midlife moment when he had been able
to rise above his past and truly see who he was and what he could become. Too
bad, too sad, that he was again to be surrounded by a whole batch of Lot’s
wives, those who thought his past was more interesting than his future. Yes,
they managed to rip out of his grasp that for which Christ had grasped him. And
he died even more sadly than Miniver Cheevy, though as far as I know the story,
through absolutely no fault of his own.
That happens in
marriages, too, and in other relationships we have. I can’t tell you the number
of couples I have counseled who, when they are deeply hurt or even just deeply
stressed, reach farther and farther into the past to find yet a bigger brick to
throw through the window “pain” of their marriage. When something is over and
done with, when it has been repented of as fully as it can be repented of, when
life has moved on as it should and a lot of other wonderfully good things have
happened since then, it is not right to go back and open up some ancient
wound that the Son of God Himself died trying to heal.
Let people repent.
Let people grow. Believe that people can change and improve. Is that faith? Yes!
Is that hope? Yes! Is it charity? Yes! Above all, it is charity, the pure love
of Christ. If something is buried in the past, leave it buried. Don’t keep
going back with your little sand pail and beach shovel to dig it up, wave it
around, and then throw it at someone, saying, “Hey! Do you remember this?”
Splat!
Well, guess what?
That is probably going to result in some ugly morsel being dug up out of your
landfill with the reply, “Yeah, I remember it. Do you remember this?”
Splat.
And soon enough
everyone comes out of that exchange dirty and muddy and unhappy and hurt, when
what God, our Father in Heaven, pleads for is cleanliness and kindness and
happiness and healing.
Such dwelling on past
lives, including past mistakes, is just not right! It is not the gospel of
Jesus Christ. It is worse than Miniver Cheevy, and in some ways worse than
Lot’s wife, because at least there he and she were only destroying themselves.
In these cases of marriage and family and wards and apartments and
neighborhoods, we can end up destroying so many, many others.
Perhaps at this
beginning of a new year there is no greater requirement for us than to do as
the Lord Himself said He does: “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the
same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more” (D&C 58:42).
The proviso, of
course, is that repentance has to be sincere, but when it is and when honest
effort is being made to progress, we are guilty of the greater sin if we keep
remembering and recalling and rebashing someone with their earlier mistakes—and
that “someone” might be ourselves. We can be so hard on ourselves, often much
more so than with others!
Now, like the
Anti-Nephi-Lehies of the Book of Mormon, bury your weapons of war, and leave
them buried. Forgive, and do that which is harder than to forgive: Forget. And
when it comes to mind again, forget it again.
You can remember just
enough to avoid repeating the mistake, but then put the rest of it all on the
dung heap Paul spoke of to those Philippians. Dismiss the destructive and keep
dismissing it until the beauty of the Atonement of Christ has revealed to you
your bright future and the bright future of your family and your friends and
your neighbors. God doesn’t care nearly as much about where you have been as He
does about where you are and, with His help, where you are willing to go. That
is the thing Lot’s wife didn’t get—and neither did Laman and Lemuel and a host
of others in the scriptures.
This is an important
matter to consider at the start of a new year—and every day ought to be the
start of a new year and a new life. Such is the wonder of faith and repentance
and the miracle of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
We started this hour
with a little verse remembered from one of my BYU English classes. May I move
toward a close with a few lines from another favorite poet whom I probably met
in that same class or one similar to it. For the benefit of all BYU students in
the new year of 2009, Robert Browning wrote:
Grow old along with
me!
The best is yet to
be,
The last of life, for
which the first was made:
Our times are in His
hand
Who saith, “A whole I
planned,
Youth shows but half;
trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”
[Rabbi Ben Ezra
(1864), stanza 1]
Sister Holland and I
were married about the time both of us were reading poems like that in BYU
classrooms. We were as starstruck—and as fearful—as most of you are at these
ages and stages of life. We had absolutely no money. Zero. For a variety of
reasons, neither of our families was able to help finance our education. We had
a small apartment just south of campus—the smallest we could find: two rooms
and a half bath. We were both working too many hours trying to stay afloat
financially, but we had no other choice.
I remember one fall
day—I think it was in the first semester after our marriage in 1963—we were
walking together up the hill past the Maeser Building on the sidewalk that led
between the President’s Home and the Brimhall Building. Somewhere on that path
we stopped and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. Life that day seemed
so overwhelming, and the undergraduate plus graduate years that we still
anticipated before us seemed monumental, nearly insurmountable. Our love for
each other and our commitment to the gospel were strong, but most of all the
other temporal things around us seemed particularly ominous.
On a spot that I
could probably still mark for you today, I turned to Pat and said something
like this: “Honey, should we give up? I can get a good job and carve out a good
living for us. I can do some things. I’ll be okay without a degree. Should we
stop trying to tackle what right now seems so difficult to face?”
In my best
reenactment of Lot’s wife, I said, in effect, “Let’s go back. Let’s go home.
The future holds nothing for us.”
Then my beloved
little bride did what she has done for 45 years since then. She grabbed me by
the lapels and said, “We are not going back. We are not going home. The future
holds everything for us.”
She stood there in
the sunlight that day and gave me a real talk. I don’t recall that she quoted
Paul, but there was certainly plenty in her voice that said she was committed
to setting aside all that was past in order to “press toward the mark” and
seize the prize of God that lay yet ahead. It was a living demonstration of
faith. It was “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen” (Hebrews 11:1). So we laughed, kept walking, and finished up sharing a
root beer—one glass, two straws—at the then newly constructed Wilkinson Center.
Twenty years later I
would, on occasion, look out of the window of the President’s Home across the
street from the Brimhall Building and picture there on the sidewalk two
newlywed BYU students, down on their money and down even more on their
confidence. And as I would gaze out that window, usually at night, I would
occasionally see not Pat and Jeff Holland but you and you and you, walking that
same sidewalk. I would see you sometimes as couples, sometimes as a group of friends,
sometimes as just a lone student. I knew something of what you were feeling.
Some of you were having thoughts such as these: Is there any future for me?
What does a new year or a new semester or a new major or a new romance hold for
me? Will I be safe? Will life be sound? Can I trust in the Lord and in the
future? Or would it be better to look back, to go back, to go home?
To all such of every
generation, I call out, “Remember Lot’s wife.” Faith is for the future. Faith
builds on the past but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has
great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the “high priest
of good things to come.”
My young brothers and
sisters, I pray you will have a wonderful semester, a wonderful new year, and a
wonderful life all filled with faith and hope and charity. Keep your eyes on
your dreams, however distant and far away. Live to see the miracles of
repentance and forgiveness, of trust and divine love that will transform your
life today, tomorrow, and forever. That is a New Year’s resolution I ask you to
keep, and I leave a blessing on you—every one of you—to be able to do so and to
be happy, in the name of Him who makes it all possible, even the Lord Jesus
Christ, amen.
