Livra-me do mal

Free me from the evil.

I have some weird dreams. I don’t believe they tell the future, but I do believe they are a way for my mind to creatively sort through whatever has been happening in my life. And trust me, it has some very creative ways that wake me up and make me think, “huh?” A dream I had Monday night (about a Christmas party of all things) helped me put a few things in perspective. I woke up having figured out how I should treat a few situations. I woke up thinking of Lot leaving Sodom and Gomorrah.

We all create our own world each day. We create our world through what we do, where we go, and who we associate with. It’s up to us, to a very large degree, to decide what comes into our world and what is not allowed. Which means if you don’t like your world, change it. Of course, that is true for everyone else as well, and the choices of others can have a great impact on our own lives. And sometimes there are situations that are completely beyond our control. But in those cases you can at least control how you are going to react.

After Lot and Abram parted ways, Lot ended up living in Sodom. I’m sure it was a nice place when he moved in. I’m sure they created some great memories there with their family. They put a lot of time and effort into their lives there. Leaving all that behind can be tough.

At the end of Genesis 18, Abraham and the Lord are talking about Sodom and Gomorrah. If there are enough righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord will spare them. Abraham starts with 50. If there are 50 righteous people, it is worth saving the cities. But Abraham had most likely heard about the cities and what was happening in them. So he starts lowering the number. What about 45? Or 40? 30? 20? And finally 10? If there are at least 10 righteous people, the cities will be saved.

There were 4.

The Lord did not destroy the righteous with the wicked though. Instead he commanded Lot and his family to leave the city.

Now here’s the thing I’ve been thinking about. When there were still at least 10, it was worth it for Lot to stick around and try to save the city. But there weren’t. And so they left.

But leaving Sodom and Gomorrah did not mean that the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah had won.

The people of the cities had chosen their path. Lot could have stayed in all the evil and tried to continue to preach the truth. But there comes a time when a city is past saving, past feeling. Mormon recognized the Nephite people had reached that point in a letter to his son (Moroni 9:11-23). The Nephite people would perish “because of the wilfulness of their hearts,” because ultimately they wanted the evil that would bring their own destruction.

At that point, you can stay and risk the evil pulling you down as well. Or you can leave, and not look back, and put the evil behind you.

So that’s what I’m going to be doing. I’m going to cut ties and leave, whether that be from an individual, a group, a place, or any other thing. And it won’t mean the evil won. It will mean I’ve chosen to not let it pull me down any further. I choose to not let that be part of my life any more. I choose what gets to be a part of my world, and evil in all its forms, contention, strife, they have no part in my life. This does not mean I will be closing myself off from the world. You cannot do that completely. Rather it means I’m going to be much more selective about what gets in and what does not. And it means that there will be times when I will have to decide that something is past my power to raise up and so I will step aside because I refuse to let them pull me down.