The Lot Debacle

This week for one reason or another, the parable of the prodigal son kept coming to mind. Feeling the prompting of the Spirit I went to study what I sensed the Lord had for us in his Word.

As I started reading the scripture found in Luke 15, I started to see the similarities between the prodigal son’s choices and Lot’s actions in Genesis 13 where Lot went his separate ways from Abraham. I sensed God wanting us to study the parable of the prodigal son through the life of Lot.

In Genesis 13, we see that Lot leaves his home and travel with his uncle Abraham to wherever Abraham was led to go. We see that as Lot spends time with Abraham, Lot’s life becomes prosperous and his actions excessively fruitful to the extent that his wealth and the wealth of his father (Abraham) are not able to coexist.

Genesis 13:6 (NKJV) particularly struck me:

Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.

Why would God’s blessing cause friction between a father and son? Doesn’t every good and perfect gift not come from above? Why would this gift cause a rift between the two?

I sensed that this strife and friction between Abraham’s and Lot’s camps was a warning sign that Lot (the son) was not able to heed. Let’s put this into today’s context shall we…

Let’s say that Abraham was a preacher with a healthy following and Lot was his spiritual son who was an up-and-coming preacher that had started to create a buzz on the church scene.

Lot now had equal (if not more) social media followers than Abraham and had opened his own church where he had powerful sermons every Sunday in the same city that Abraham’s is in. Logic would dictate that the city would not be big enough for these two powerful Men of God and that for the sake of ministry one would need to be given a new terrain to operate and preach the gospel?

The challenge (whether it’s Lot in the Bible or Lot the up-and-coming preacher) is that they both did not see the warning signs. God’s blessings can never cause strife or friction between a father and son but it’s man’s interpretations of the blessing of God that turn a blessing into a curse.

Students of the Word understand that Lot was operating under the spiritual covering of Abraham (his spiritual father) and that it was that covering (through the anointing of God) that allowed Lot to be prosperous and fruitful.

A father is anointed by God as a carrier of Grace to create an environment over the son in which the Son can be fed doctrine and grow in the ways of the Lord. This is the Father and Son Wineskin that we spoke about in a previous discussion. This is the framework that God has directed us to fulfil the great commission spoken to us in the book of Matthew of creating disciples that are mature in Spirit. The father and son relationship is not only for a time that has a beginning and end (while the son is undergoing his maturity process) but is more a continuous relationship that is to remain for life (irrespective on how mature the son has become).

A son’s belief that he has arrived and is at equal footing with the father and no longer requires the covering of the father is faulty doctrine. More troubling is the belief that he no longer is required to submit to the father in the same way he did when he was a child.

This is not to dismiss the grace Lot carries or the fruit (success) he is able to produce but to focus on the purpose of the father and the role he plays in his son’s development. A son’s role to enable the Father and Son Wineskin to be effective is to submit to the father always. Lot’s  belief that it was time to “Redefine the Relationship” with his father is vanity.

The Word has shown as the example every son must take irrespective of their maturity, reach or impact as seen in Philippians 2:5  – 7 (NIV).

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Jesus had arrived, had the followers, had the sermons, had the miracles. He could have reached the point where he could go and had a conversation with God to “Redefine their Relationship”, but he didn’t, he stayed SUBMITTED to his Father, and this is key.

Lot missed the warning signs (friction) that started coming up with the newly found prosperity.  It was not a time to “Redefine his Relationship” with his father but a time to “Intensify his Submission” to his father. If there is not enough grass to graze the flock, give the best portion to his father. If the wells are at capacity, reduce the trips to the watering well or give the preferential times to the father whatever is required to remain at peace and submitted to his father.

It’s key to have the mindset Christ had as seen in John 5:19 (NIV).

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

Jesus understood the Father and Son Wineskin template and always executed under its framework and under the covering of his Father.

The word to sons all around, is may we pray for wisdom, humility and a submissive spirit that closes the door on us ever having a “Relationship Redefining conversation” with our Fathers which is the first step in as actively removing ourselves from our father’s covering.

A son and father should never compete or have to redefine their relationship because our relationship with God our Father will never be redefined. May we have the sensitivity to see the warning signs when our pride and offence causes our submission to our fathers to reduce, damaging the exact framework of the Father and Son Wineskin that God has released to us to not only survive, but to thrive in His Kingdom.