A Little Town Called Zoar
When God offers to rescue you, do you ever bargain for something smaller and more familiar than what he is offering? And what would it mean if he sometimes said yes?
“See now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can’t escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die.”Genesis 19:19
Years before this night, Lot had looked out over the well-watered plain of the Jordan and chosen it for himself, pitching his tents toward Sodom (Genesis 13). By chapter 19 he is no longer camped near the city. He sits in its gate. When the two messengers warn him that judgment is coming, Lot does not run. He lingers. So the men seize his hand, along with the hands of his wife and two daughters, "Yahweh being merciful to him," and set him outside the city (19:16). Then they tell him to flee to the mountains. Even with the smoke of judgment about to rise, Lot negotiates. The mountains feel too far and too wild. There is a town nearby, he says, and "isn't it a little one?" That town, once called Bela (14:2), was named Zoar, a name that sounds like the Hebrew word for "little" (19:22).
In the middle of his bargaining, Lot says something true: "you have magnified your loving kindness, which you have shown to me in saving my life." The word is hesed, the loyal, committed love that keeps faith with a relationship and often gives far more than is owed. Here it is shown to a man who has given God very little reason to show it. Genesis tells us where it came from: "God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow" (19:29). Lot's rescue rested on God's faithfulness to someone else's covenant, not on Lot's own record. And the angel even grants the small request: "I have granted your request concerning this thing also." Hesed stoops low enough to make room for a frightened man's little faith. Yet a few verses later, Lot leaves Zoar, afraid to live there, and goes up into the mountains after all (19:30). The place God first named turned out to be where he ended up.
Most of us know something about Zoar. We want to be rescued, but not too far. We want out of the burning city, but we would like to stay close to what we know: the old habits, the comfortable compromises, the small town just down the road. And here is the startling thing. God's steadfast love does not wait for us to stop lingering before it takes hold of our hand. It pulls reluctant people out by the wrist. It listens to our timid bargaining with patience instead of contempt. In a world that tends to love people only when they deserve it, this is a love that holds on because of who God is and the promises he has made, now fulfilled in Christ. But Lot's story also leaves a quiet question hanging in the mountain air. The little places we ask for do not always hold us. Sometimes the wild, far-off ground God pointed to at the start was the safe place all along.
Where in your life are you asking God for a "Zoar," something smaller and closer than what he may be calling you toward? Write about a time God's love took hold of you when you were lingering.
Lord, you know how often I linger when you call me out. Thank you for the steadfast love that took my hand when I would not move on my own, and for the patience you show to my small and fearful faith. Thank you that my rescue rests on your faithfulness and not on my record. Lead me toward the places you have named, even when they feel too far. Amen.