New Year's: Look Not behind Thee

Look not behind thee
But unto the new year
Aim high and be happy
Move forward with good cheer

What is waiting
Is part of God's plan
Patiently
Take Christ by the hand

Yesterday is gone
And can't be called back
Tomorrow's our song
There is a right track

We have a Savior
Who helps us repent
The path to the future
Is the atonement

It is time to leave
Our old ways behind
Have faith, hope, believe
There is newness to find

Be not as Lot's wife
Who lived for the past
When given new life
To the known she did cast

So soon she forgot
Each heavy old fault
It was forward or not
Thus she turned...poof.. but to salt

This hit me in a profound way. We just came back from California to see family for Christmas. We started to question our decision to move. When we have so much to be
thankful for. I can see God's hand in making our burden lighter to carry. We have a house in California that for 6 months we have been trying to sell. two and a half times more expensive than what we are living in. Yet we are able to keep up with the payments. We are being blessed and have jobs. But, literally, the grass looks greener- than here in the desert. The bottom line really is- where does God want us to be?

the origin of the thought Look Not Behind Thee comes from Elder Holland's talk
Remember Lot's Wife
Brigham Young University Devotional, January 13, 2009: (click on post's title to go directly to article)
http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/56453/Elder-Jeffrey-R-Holland-Remember-Lots-wife.html


"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).

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. At daybreak the morning following their escape it says, "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 for today 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 to a pillar of salt.

In the time we have this morning I am not going to talk about the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, nor of the comparison the Lord Himself made to those days and our own time. Nor am I going to talk about obedience and disobedience. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes about looking back and looking ahead. "