Oceans in the Desert

By Kathi Pelton

I used to think that our family was unique because God had called us to constantly live in the place that I call “unfamiliar.” Over the forty years of our marriage, God called our family to live in many different regions, states and nations as He sent us on different spiritual assignments in different seasons. It has been rare for us to be in the same house for more than three years and is often the area that we live in is unfamiliar (no prior memories and new people). We have learned to find our sense of stability in God and one another since scenery, people and homes are constantly changing.

Yet, as I look around our nation and our world I realize that everywhere I look has become quite unfamiliar to most everyone. People who have lived in the same city and home for decades are experiencing a sense of unfamiliarity even in the most familiar places. The world has changed and there is no going back to what was once normal or familiar.

So, how do you live in this place and not become disoriented, disillusioned or lost? Though my life has prepared me to live in amid constant changes, even I have had to press through the emotional chaos of an entire world shifting. I believe that we can learn a lot from the story of Lot’s wife in this hour.

Lot’s wife made her home in Sodom. This place had been her home and it was where her treasures were. Memories of friends and family were there and everything familiar to her was there. Although Sodom had become a place of pride, a place where men and women lived out unnatural and deviant desires, a place that withheld help from the poor (and turned away from God), nevertheless, it was where Lot’s wife had put her treasures. It was what was familiar to her.

It is tragic that many of our cities today are beginning to look like Sodom did when God destroyed it. When fire from heaven came down and was destroying Sodom, Lot’s wife looked back at the place she had called home and longed for her treasures and her life there.

When she did this, she became a pillar of salt that forever would be found in the posture of looking back.

We can all admit that the past few years have given us moments of looking back and longing for what once was. We are often in disbelief at all that is happening in our nations and with mankind. Lot’s wife couldn’t see the justice of God in destroying what had defiled men and taken them far from him— she just saw the familiar place where her earthly treasures were at being destroyed as she ran away from Sodom into the unfamiliar.

I do not know if Lot’s wife was engaged in the sin of that city or if she merely had become so familiar with it that she could live among it without experiencing God’s sorrow over it (forgetting the high eternal price that would be paid by her family, friends and neighbors). Whatever the case, when she looked back, she was never able to move forward or look forward again. She would never be able to go back or go forward again.

I have learned through all of my personal transitions and changes that I can carry in my heart the precious and pure memories of days gone by. I don’t have to look back at what I’m leaving behind because what is good and precious is carried with me. This posture helps me to move forward without a constant sense of loss or regrets.

The longings of yesterday do not become an idol or a god that you give homage to. You do not have to forsake the now for what you had before— just treasure the beauty in your heart and keep moving forward.

I am a very sentimental person and all
of my family is very sentimental as well. If we had our way, we would have remained in the city where our family has lived for generations. We would have picked one house and made a lifetime of memories there and we would live on streets that told our story and had our names. But for us, it would have been a strumbling block— our sentimental hearts could have easily made it an idol. This is not to say that God does not call many to plant themselves in one city for many generations and steward legacy and land, it is merely to say that he chose another way for us. But no matter where or what God has called you to— in these times when the unfamiliar has overshadowed even the most familiar we must learn to look forward and not back. Our hearts must learn to long for what is ahead and not hold too tightly for what lies behind. We need to become familiar with the eternal so that we do not get caught tied to the temporal. This world is not our home and God is creating a longing for our true home and destiny.

We are to be like the wise virgins looking forward— awaiting the arrival of our bridegroom, buying oil and looking forward during the night in expectancy of His coming.

It is difficult to reconcile our familiar existence and life here on earth as something temporal and yet we all know (believers and unbelievers) that our time here is but a breath in the span of eternity. We often view heaven as an unknown or unfamiliar place. This is why it is so vital in this hour to become acquainted and familiar with God and his eternal Kingdom. The lack of familiarity with his dwelling place will always cause us to be drawn to look back and long for the temporal.

It also can cause us to filter out what is grievous to God— therefore, we become overwhelmed with sorrow when God destroys what is harming the people he created. Over the past few years we have watched devastating fires ravage some of the most beautiful land in our nation, we have watched entire cities flood, hurricanes and natural disasters take what was home from many people— and some have looked back and become like pillars of salt in their grief and sorrow. But there is a place that cannot be touched by tears and grief— it is sacred and we should become familiar with it even now.

You can ask the Spirit of God to separate your heart ties from things that would cause you to despair or faint in the midst of an ever-changing world and environment. You can love and appreciate the beauty of memories, places and people without allowing them to become gods or idols— or “own your heart”. My life has been a long process of dealing with sentimental idols that attached themselves to my heart.

Beauty moves me and home calls to me in the deepest parts of my soul, yet I know that what I see and behold here on earth are mere shadows of what is to come— our true eternal home.

Enjoy and be grateful for all that is around you but don’t let it hold you back from developing a longing for the city whose maker is the Lord and for your Bridegroom to be your greatest longing—which keeps your eyes looking forward and not behind.

To summarize— let the unfamiliar draw you into becoming familiar with that which is eternal!

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

May your treasures and your heart be found in heaven! This will keep your eyes looking forward— not back.

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