Ruth 1 Devotional
By Pastor Lawrence

At times we all undergo the frowning providence of God, for we all will eventually lose loved ones and we all will experience the bitter pain of loss of many ways. But as Christians, our identity and our joy should not come from our circumstances but from our covenant with the Lord. When Naomi returned to Bethlehem after losing her husband and her two sons in the land of Moab, she refused to allow her friends to call her by her given name Naomi, for it means pleasant and delightful, which did not square with her current disposition. Instead, she demanded that they call her Mara, which means bitterness, for she said, “the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.”

In this day and age, when it is considered unlawful to misuse someone’s chosen pronouns, we might be reluctant to challenge Naomi’s perspective concerning her own mental state, and I imagine her friends humored her for the time being given the extent of her despair, but should they have? Certainly, there is a time for listening and for just coming alongside someone when they’re hurting, but at some point, being guided by the wisdom of the Spirit, this self-destructive theology needs to be challenged, especially with believers.

Naomi was no newbie to the covenantal teachings of God. She knew God’s promises and enjoyed his blessings for many years. This sudden change of fortune was not God withdrawing his love from her, it was not God punishing her in some way, and it was not God abandoning her when she needed him the most. No, this was the Lord’s mysterious providence in bringing about his perfect will, not only for her life and for Ruth’s, but for the entire nation of Israel and for all the world through the coming of the Messiah through her lineage. Of course, Naomi doesn’t know any of this yet and probably would not be comforted by this new immediately anyway. Nevertheless, the Lord was indeed doing something good through these evil circumstances, though Naomi didn’t have faith to believe it at the time.

Sometimes a good friend can bring back the doubting Christian to her senses. Sometimes speaking the truth in love is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Sometimes a word out of season is even more profitable than a word in season. But to be a messenger from God in this manner takes much grace, humility and love not only to hear the complaints of the sufferer and to affirm the difficulty of their circumstances but also to remind them of the goodness of the Lord and his faithfulness to his covenant.