Look Not Behind Thee

*WARNING: To those of you who feel that this blog already has too many words, I'm just warning you that this one is going to be a doozy. My brain is full and I just need a good, old-fashioned brain dump.

So, I've been searching for New Years Resolutions for a couple of weeks. I really believe in New Years Resolutions, and I really want to evaluate my life and look for areas of improvement. Here are a few that I came up with:

• Read all four standard works this year.
• Get my house on a "cleaning schedule" (Monday: Laundry, Tuesday: Bathrooms, Wednesday: Floors & Windows, etc.)
• Cut out dessert.
• Stop swearing or yelling. Period.
• Get up at 6 every morning to exercise and read my scriptures before my kids get up.
• Have the house picked up and dinner on the table when my husband gets home from work.
  

I could call these "New Years Resolutions," or I could call them "101 Ways to Fail by February." Are these all things that I should do? Yes. Would they make me a better person? Yes. Have I already tried them (and failed)? Yes. They just weren't sitting right with me. Then, I saw this video. I knew that this was what I was looking for.

The story of Lot and his wife comes from Genesis. This was the time when the people of two cities (Sodom and Gomorrah) became so wicked that the Lord decided to destroy the cities. He warned Lot and his family. “Escape for thy life,” the Lord said. "Look not behind thee...; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.” They did not leave right away, but did eventually leave the city. The Lord did indeed destroy the cities, but Lot's wife could not resist the temptation and did "look back." She was turned into a pillar of salt. Or, in other words, was also destroyed.

Elder Holland offers an explanation as to the nature of the sin of Lot's wife: "Just what did Lot’s wife do that was so wrong? As a student of history, I have thought about that and offer 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 she was past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom and 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."

Like Lot's wife, I tend to look to the past and long for it. Sometimes I long for it because I remember it to be easier; sometimes I long for it because I want to change my behavior; sometimes I long for it because I just can't deal with "today." Unlike Lot's wife, I don't long for the "offerings" of Sodom or Gomorroah. I think that Elder Holland's words express how I feel: "As a new year begins 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 and 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."

These are a few things that I need to let go of and "look not behind":

• Guilt of Parenting
• Childbearing
• Forgiveness of Family Members
• Marriage

This is the key to my success (more words from Elder Holland):

"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 that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as what she was leaving behind.

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, and to miss the here and now and tomorrow because we are so trapped in the there and then and yesterday are some of the sins of Lot’s wife.

“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” (Hebrews 9:11)."

Throughout the year, I am going to try to remember this phrase: Look Not Behind Thee. I am going to try to work through a lot of my guilt and longing for the past. I am going to be better at living in the moment and having faith in the future.