Jeffrey R. Holland wrote:
. . . . So if history is important—and it surely is—what did Lot’s wife do that was so wrong? As something of a student of history, I have thought about that and offer this 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. It would appear that even before they were past the city limits, she was already missing what Sodom and Gomorrah had offered her. As Elder Neal A. Maxwell once said, such people know they should have their primary residence in Zion, but they still hope to keep a summer cottage in Babylon.5
It is possible that Lot’s wife looked back with resentment toward the Lord for what He was asking her to leave behind. . . . it isn’t just that she looked back; she looked back longingly. In short, her attachment to the past outweighed her confidence in the future. That, apparently, was at least part of her sin.
So, 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, we remember that faith is always pointed towards 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—fatally as it turned out—that nothing that lay ahead could possibly be as good as those moments 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; to miss the here-and-now-and-tomorrow because we are so trapped in the there-and-then-and-yesterday—these are some of the sins—if we may call them that, of Lots wife. . .Jeffrey R. Holland, To My Friends (Deseret Book, 2014), 238-240 Dwarsligger® edition
