Has the Lord been calling you to surrender some sin? Has he been prompting you by His Holy Spirit to live a life in greater service to Him than the worldly pleasure you now serve? Or is he simply calling you to spend more time in the prayerful study of His Word, which we so often neglect? Whatever it may be, we all have enough sluggishness in us that we should, with all earnestness, strive against it. May the words of this devotion be the means God uses to move us on, for if mere words are not enough, in His mercy and love, He will lay his hands on His child.

And while [Lot] lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside [of Sodom]. -Genesis. 19:16

If we find ourselves stuck in Sodom, God will lay hold of our hand. In the verse above, we find Lot in the final moments before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The warnings had been clear, and Lot had not doubted the truthfulness of the threats. Yet in the final moments before the destruction, as Lot is told to escape with his life, he lingers, unable to move. John Calvin says this regarding Lot’s lingering, “His tardiness is truly wonderful, since, though he was certainly persuaded that the angels did not threaten in vain, he could yet be moved by no force of words until he is dragged by their hands out of the city.”

What caused him to linger? Matthew Poole estimates that “He lingered, either through an aversion to part with all his estate, or to lose his sons-in-law; or through astonishment and distraction of mind, which made him both listless and impotent.” Whatever it was, Lot was powerless to move on his own, and this seems to be the experience of us all from time to time when the Lord, through his word, has told us to move. Whether it is a sin with which we hate to part or a comfortable career the Lord has told us to leave behind, we are often spiritually sluggish.

God has told us in His word to press on and be conformed to his image. He has told us to do all He has commanded us. The thunderous warnings of the destruction of everything contrary to Him and His ways have rung in our ears; He warns us to flee the wrath to come. Along with the thundering of destruction that pressures us from behind, we also have the beauty of Christ and our promised joy in Him before us, bidding us come. Yet, even with all of this, we often sit motionless in a steadfast stupor.

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