The Best is Yet to Be

Today marks the ninth year since Matt and I were married. Our wedding day was a special day for me, starting a new life with the person I chose to love, honor and 'stick by' all the rest of my life and forever. I've never once looked back with regret, not even during the rough spots. I lucked out marrying a man who loves me for who I was on that day, who I am now and who I'll be. Hopefully, for his sake, THE BEST IS YET TO BE!

I'm thinking that over the past three years I may not have been the easiest Lori to love. If you know me at all, you know I've struggled during the last three years since our move to Phoenix. We moved under very difficult circumstances in a short amount of time and my sorrow led me into a downward spiral of depression and deep despair, despite all the tremendous miracles, love and good that surrounded me. With the patience of Matt, my family, new and old good friends, time and sometimes just 'faking it,' the depression has lifted and we're moving foward, to the point now, that Matt and I have decided to purchase a home that suits our family better a few neighborhoods away and rent out our current home. The decision has been a difficult one (for me, especially!) because I'm afraid of repeating the past. Or is that really the problem?

While I was visiting Matt's sister's family after Christmas in Afton, Wyoming, I sat down to read the monthly magazine that our Church publishes, The Ensign. One of the first articles literally LEAPT off the page, right from the title: "The Best is Yet to Be," where Elder Jeffrey R. Holland says, 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 about New Year’s resolutions, but I do want to talk about the past and the future, with an eye toward any time of transition and change in our lives—and those moments come virtually every day.

As a scriptural theme for this discussion, I have chosen Luke 17:32, where the Savior cautions, “Remember Lot’s wife.” What did He mean by such an enigmatic little phrase? To find out, we need to do as He suggested. Let’s recall who Lot’s wife was. The 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).

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).

My theme comes in the next verse. 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 (see verse 26).

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. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin.

Faith Points to the Future
"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.

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.

After the Apostle Paul reviewed the privileged and rewarding life of his early years—his birthright, education, and standing in the Jewish community—he says to the Philippians that all of that was “dung” 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’” (see Philippians 3:7–12). Then come these verses:

“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, that we will win “the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

So, this is MY lesson: I'm Matt's wife, not Lot's, and "this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before." Email me for the new address!!