“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The LORD has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
Ruth 1:20-21
I had the great honor of preaching again at my church the last couple of weekends, digging into the book of Ruth. Although it’s a short book, it is an amazing story full of lessons. I’m not going into great detail here, but want to pull a few things out from where my research took me. If you’re not familiar with the story, read it first and then come back here.
The book begins by introducing us to a family from Bethlehem. Elimelech and Naomi pack their belongings and take their sons with them to the nearby country of Moab. The sons, Mahlon and Kilion, marry Moabite women. By the time verse 5 is done, Elimelech, Mahlon, and Kilion are all dead. How tragic for these three widows!
Note the angle of the trees – do you think it gets windy here?
Naomi decides to journey home to Bethlehem. She’s able to convince one daughter-in-law, Orpah, to go back to her family. Perhaps her father could find another husband for her who could take care of her. However, Ruth is dedicated to Naomi and goes back with her. She makes an amazing declaration: “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:16-17).
As they enter town, Naomi bemoans what has befallen her (quoted above). It seems that even God is against her. Have you ever been in a place when things are going horribly wrong and even God seems against you? Then the book of Ruth is for you. This is how the book begins. But it ends with hope and a future. Despite God appearing far, God was actually close to Naomi and just about to jump in to help her.