19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die.
Even in the middle of a great deliverance, Lot has difficulty trusting in the goodness of the Lord. The Lord has pulled he and his immediate family out of a city that is about to be destroyed. The messenger tells him to keep going into the mountains where he will be safe. But Lot thinks he can’t make it to the mountains. Or perhaps Lot is lazy, like so many of us. Maybe he did not have much of an exercise routine and this several hour walk is too much for him. He asks for a concession. He wants to stop in a small town only a short distance away. God often wants to take us further away from our past than we are willing to go. Sometimes we want to stay close to where we left. After all we have friends and family in that old life. It is familiar. We are comfortable. For Lot going to the mountains would involve some effort. Besides, the mountains are where his uncle Abraham lives. And the last time they met, he took advantage of the old man and chose the best land for himself. So maybe some guilt is coming into play as well. Going to the mountains might mean facing his past, which might be worse than facing his present. We don’t really know what Lot’s reasons were for wanting to not follow the instructions of the Lord. All we know is that he gets his wish. The small town is spared. Lot gets to go that direction instead. Of course, this move may have cost his wife her life. When we compromise what the Lord asks of us, it may cost us more than we are expecting. I would suggest that we do everything the Lord asks, rather than trying to work out a compromise with Him. He might grant the compromise, but the cost might be much greater than we had anticipated.
The Arnold Journey 