This is a scriptural meditation from the Russian book, “Day by Day”:
Scripture: “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke: 17, 32)
Meditation:
“For what purpose does Jesus, speaking of the Second Сoming, recall Lot’s wife?
"Just like Lot’s wife was forbidden to look back on the perishing Sodom, and was turned into a pillar of salt for her disobedience, so likewise on the great day of the Second Coming, there will be no return. It will be too late to look back on the life one has lived. One’s gaze will need to be directed forward, to heaven.
"Incidentally, these words of the Savior have a deep meaning in the present as well. He warns us against false curiosity. Lot’s wife knew that in looking back, she could not help those who were perishing in any way. In disobeying, she simply fulfilled her self-indulgence, without any benefit. All of us have felt the attraction which forbidden fruit has for us. We sometimes want to gaze at it at least once, but this gaze becomes not only criminal, but harmful as well, for it slows us down on the way to goodness and fixes us in place.
"That is why Lot’s wife is an image of the human soul: a whole world is perishing behind it, while ahead of it stretches boundless salvation, eternal life, and the fulfillment of all hope. But it freezes in place.
“My soul, for your salvation, for the salvation of the souls entrusted to you, you must, without looking back, without hesitation, go forward – to where the sun of truth rises. “The sun had risen over the land, and Lot had come to Zoar” (Gen: 19, 23). Likewise you, in this unearthly light, enter the eternal dwellings, enter into the joy of Your Lord.”
This brings to mind Lucy’s encounter with the magician’s book in chapter ten of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It is a book of magic spells. Lucy sees a spell which would make her very beautiful and attractive, more than Susan, who is considered the most attractive. But before she can pronounce the words to the spell, a picture of Aslan appears on the page, and she stops. But going on in the book, she sees a spell that shows you what other people think of you. This time she gives in, and sees a friend of hers telling another girl that she doesn’t really like Lucy. And despite the fact that Aslan subsequently tells Lucy that her friend only said that because she was afraid of the other girl, this still leaves a scar with Lucy.
I also have sometimes given in to unnecessary curiosity which I have come to regret.
Dimitry
“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)