Genesis 19: In The Plain

Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land. But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. -Gen. 19:25-27 NIV

We've driven through that plain, the plain which was once so attractive and appealing to Lot. Whatever attraction and appeal it once held has been gone for centuries. It is a dry and arid and place, a vista broken only by the shrinking Dead Sea.  We've also watched those seemingly pleasant plains in our lives turn into hard rock and stone before our very eyes.  It seems to have to do with what we're chasing after...are we chasing after the easy road, the fruitful plain, the place where all of our troubles will be over because we're living the abundant life.

Abraham knew that the abundant life was not to be found in chasing after a mirage of the 'good life'.  The good life for him was to be found in seeking God.  Early on, Abraham, when he was still called Abram, would pick up his tent and go to wherever he was led, to a stopping point where he would build an altar to God.  He would stay there until it was time to move on to the next place where he would build another altar.  So when Abram viewed the plains that were so attractive to Lot, he was not impressed.  They were just another place.  It was God that was his reward, and although he waited almost a century to receive that reward, he never stopped seeking after the giver and building altars of thanksgiving, whether it was in the hills or on the plain.