Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1:1-22

We’ve reached the end of chapter 1 in Ruth.

There are three situations in the chapter that we al face as human beings: aloneness, hopelessness in suffering and the plight of old age (Younger, 429).

Naomi is left alone in Moab. There seems little source of hope, economically or spiritually. She is growing old.

This pandemic has made us all face the challenges of being human.

But there is another factor in Ruth 1. – the sovereignty and providence of God. Naomi is not alone, she is not hopeless and her old age is not a source of negativity. She is able, as a person of faith, to see the Lord’s hand in the good and in the bad, on the mountaintops and in the valleys.

Noami is able to say with Job, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” (Job 1:21)

This is one of the hardest things to grow into as Christians. Jesus Christ, faced all this and more for us, and through him, we live trusting that, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28)

Not in some things. But in all things.

Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1:21

²⁰ “Don’t call me Naomi,^[b]” she told them. “Call me Mara,^[c] because the Almighty^[d] has made my life very bitter. ²¹ I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted^[e] me;the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

This is a hard verse. Naomi acknowledges her misfortune in the providence of God. “I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty….The Lord has afflicted me….The Almighty has brought misfortune on me.”

We do not want to associate God with any hardship in our lives. We have a sense that if God loves us then nothing bad will ever happen to us.

The witness of Scripture is not this simple. In Job, it is the “arrows” and “terrors” of the Almighty against him (6:4). In John, Jesus goes to the cross according to the will of the Father.

So with Naomi, is there any way we can reimagine hardship and suffering within the purposes of God? As the book of Ruth unfolds, we’ll see how God uses a bad situation to bring great good (from this broken family comes the Messiah!).

Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1:20-21

²⁰ “Don’t call me Naomi,^[b]” she told them. “Call me Mara,^[c] because the Almighty^[d] has made my life very bitter. ²¹ I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted^[e] me;the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

In the OT, a person’s name is often seen as expressing one’s personality or character. Here, exhausted, at the summary of the low point in her life, Naomi tells the women to no longer call her by her name.

Call me Mara, bitter, instead. The events of the years have marked her, unchangeably. She is scarred.

Aren’t we all? We don’t get through life without them.

The good news here is that even in her bitterness, Naomi (Mara), still acknowledges the Lord’s presence.

Can we see the Lord’s hand at work even and especially in times we might not choose? Indeed, God is sovereign in every situation. Thanks be to God in Jesus, who suffered for us on the cross, and is present in our suffering.

Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1:19b

When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

This question – Can this be Naomi? – is not addressed by the women in Bethlehem to Naomi. It’s a rhetorical question they ask to each other.

They are surprised to see her.

They don’t expect it.

Naomi had left, now in God’s providence she returns. They didn’t see it coming.

We can’t guess what God will do, in God’s time and for His purposes. “For my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts greater than your thoughts”, says of the Lord, in Isaiah.

Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1:18-19

¹⁸ When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. ¹⁹ So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem.

Things come full circle for Naomi. She left Bethlehem with her husband and sons. Tragedy struck. Hardship. And now she is returning to Bethlehem. The only person with her is Ruth.

Ruth’s name means ‘friendship’. She represents God’s faithfulness to Naomi.

We can’t predict the future. How our lives will turn out. Naomi sure didn’t imagine returning home with only Ruth. But we can predict God’s faithfulness, and rely on Him. We can trust Him everyday, and on every path. God is faithful.

Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1:15-17

¹⁵ “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

¹⁶ But Ruth replied, “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. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Ruth’s response defies logic. It shifts loyalties (Where you Go I will Go). It carries across national religion (Your God will be my God). It transcends racial boundaries (Your people will my people).

In fact, Ruth’s response of complete loyalty to Naomi foreshadows God’s faithfulness to us in Christ. He leaves heaven. Comes to earth. Transcends every boundary. His death on the cross is because of his loyalty to His Father’s will.

As Christians, the Holy Spirit works this faithfulness in us.

Blest be the tie that binds
  Our hearts in Christian love;
The fellowship our spirit finds
  Is like to that above.

Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1:14

“¹⁴ At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.”

Are we ever called to do the insensible? Orpah does the sensible thing. The safe thing. She takes Naomi’s offer and returns to Moab.

Ruth, on the other hand, does something outrageous. Instead of the safety of her parents’ household in Moab, she decides to stay with Naomi. To what end? Where to? For what future?

Ruth doesn’t just stay with Naomi, she ‘clings’ to her. That means deep loyalty or affection; a change in membership from one group to another. It’s the same word in Genesis 2:24, “For this reason, a man shall leave his mother and father and be united (cling to) his wife.”

Ruth’s loyalty foreshadows Christ’s. He leaves this safety of heaven. Comes down to be with a broken up world, and hurting people like us. Is that sensible? It is not. But it is sacrificial. Sometimes Christians are called more to the sacrificial than the sensible.

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33)

Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1: 10-13

“¹⁰ they (the daughters-in-law said to her), “We will go back with you to your people.”

¹¹ But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? ¹² Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— ¹³ would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

It’s perhaps the darkest realization we can have. To think the Lord’s hand is against us. This is the climax point of Naomi’s back-and-forth with her daughters-in-law. She feels that to stay with her, they too will experience the bitterness, the loss and the pain, that she’s experienced.

And she sees her trials as the Lord’s hand against her. Like, Paul, ‘I was given a thorn in my flesh.’ (2 Cor. 12:7)

We know from Scripture that the Lord will allow trials to come (remember Job also), but only with the promise that He will never leave us with that ‘beyond which we can bear’ (1 Cor 10:13) and that He can, does and will work ‘all things for good’ (Genesis 50:22, Romans 8:28).

Naomi’s reached the bottom. And there she’ll find a life-changing assurance through Ruth, that points us to God’s incredible faithfulness in Jesus.

Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1: 9

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“May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband. Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud.” 

Naomi blesses her daughters-in-law a second time – now with rest. May the Lord grant that each of you find rest.

Forsaking her own comfort, Naomi wishes rest for them.

How much would you say we are people at rest? In Hebrew, the word is menuchah. A place of permanence, comfort, quiet. It is often the phrase, ‘a resting place’.

The place of rest is a precious place. It can easily escape us. Our emotions are not at rest. Our bodies are rest-less. Our lives, especially in this pandemic, seem like they are limping from one day to the next.

The rest Naomi extends here points us to a deeper rest and a promise.

The good news is that we can truly have rest – at every level – in Christ. “Come to me all you who are weary”, said Jesus, “I and will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

Reassurance: Scripture for your day from the Book of Ruth – 1: 8

“⁸ Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me.”

Naomi blesses her daughters-in-law. She sends them back to their own homes, where they can have a future, and blesses them. This counter intuitive. In blessing and sending, Naomi is sending security and help away. She’ll now return home alone.

It’s a significant verse in Ruth. For the first time we hear the word, hesed. May the Lord deal kindly (hesed) with you.

The word means covenantal loyalty, kindness, goodness and love. It is one of two great theological foundations of this whole story.

In announcing the Lord’s hesed Naomi points us to the truth of Jesus Christ. In Him, we experience God’s ultimate kindness to us. One that never fails, no matter what we are facing.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great one with which he loved us…made us alive together with Christ…so that in the ages to come he might how the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:4-8)

Remember this promise today. It’s stronger than every other word you will hear along your way.