You know that feeling when you try to move forward, but your feet feel like they’re glued to the pavement? You’re walking the “Holy” walk, doing all the right things, saying all the right prayers, but something deep inside feels hollow.

​We talk a lot about seeking God and finding healing, but let’s be real—a lot of us are trying to skip the hard part. We want the blessing without the burn. We want to claim the title of “Found” without actually doing the deep, messy work required to let go of the old life.

​The Problem of the Pretenders

​I’ve been thinking about Lot’s wife lately. God specifically told us to “Remember Lot’s wife.”

​She had salvation handed to her: Get out, don’t look back. But when the moment came, she turned. She became a pillar of salt, a monument to a divided heart. She was physically saved, but her soul was still attached to the very things God was destroying.

​And honestly? That image hits home.

​There’s a lot of old sin, the old ways, the old hurts, the old identities, that people try to forget without actually healing. They treat their past like a dirty room they just shut the door on. They’re walking forward, but their heart is constantly swiveling backward, nostalgic for the feelings, the comfort, or even the familiar chaos of what they left behind.

​I know this intimately. It was hard to let go of who I was, and who people and things were to me. I didn’t realize the power that the attachment to the feels, the memories, and the items of the past had on me. That attachment is the spiritual anchor dragging you back toward Sodom.

​“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

​The Fruit Test

​This brings me to the “holy” folk who claim to have arrived. They walk around announcing their salvation and judging others. They want to be seen as “Holy” and “Found,” but they haven’t done the work.

​You can tell who has done the work, not by the volume of their prayers or the perfect attendance at church, but by the Fruit of their Works.

​The Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness.

​If someone is constantly anxious, impatient, gossipy, or quick to anger, where is the evidence of their inner healing? They might pass the test of this world. They look good on Sunday morning. They have the right vocabulary, but their inward measure doesn’t stand up to the blinding, consuming Holiness of God.

​“By their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7:20)

​The true work is confronting the unhealed wound. It’s allowing the Lord to scrape the attachment off your soul. It’s deciding, every day, that the difficult future with Him is better than the comfortable, known prison of the past.

​Don’t just walk away from your Sodom; let it burn in your memory without yearning for it.

The Testimony You Hide is the Light You Snuff Out

​We just talked about the danger of being Lot’s wife, but there is a second, just as sneaky way we can be held hostage by our history: hiding the testimony of how God saved us from it.

​If there are pieces of your story, those redeemed wounds, that can be used to glorify God and you refuse to use them, you are still hidden in sin. You are still holding on.

​The Theological Principle: Redemptive Display

​This isn’t just about being inspiring; it is a foundational theological truth in the New Covenant. The work of Christ was a public, redemptive act, and our personal salvation follows this pattern: we are saved not just from the world, but often for the world.

​The theological principle is this: God chooses the weak things (our broken past, our struggles, our former shame) to display the invincible strength of His grace.

​The Apostle Paul spoke directly to this when he wrote:

​“And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

​Your specific, messy details are not roadblocks; they are the unique keys God has given you. Those things can save others in a way that only God can.

​The moment you surrender the shame of the “before” and use it to glorify the “after,” you complete the healing process. You are no longer Lot’s wife, you are a beacon of God’s redemptive power.

​What attachments are still anchoring your heart to the past? What part of your story is God asking you to release and use as a life raft for someone else? Share your thoughts below.