Love Like a Mother -- Naomi and Ruth预览

BLESS THE MESS

We all have famine in our rearview, those characteristically dry seasons marked by a fear of lack and an uncertainty about where our next portion will come from. These mark a time of desperation, stagnation (sometimes in the faith), and certainly a point of experienced hopelessness. Fear in these seasons often sparks a fight or flight response, even in the most ardent believers. These fearful thoughts inevitably land you down one of two very complex, yet very different roads. You either feel guilty for demanding God’s attention in your situation when you know for certain you’re still better off than many others with much more pressing problems. Or you feel jealous of others and bitter towards God for delivering blessings to everyone else but you. The former lends itself to increased isolation, the latter to bitter confrontation. Somewhere in the middle is where this story begins.

During the time when judges ruled Israel, the people of God had lost their way. They had done what was right in their own eyes and lost the covenant blessing of God as a result. The contract between God and his people was in breach. Instead of blessing, the land had become cursed. When famine came to Bethlehem, Naomi uprooted her life and moved 7,000 miles away with her family, inspired by the hope that they would be met with needed provision. But once they arrived in Moab, she lost much more than anticipated. The losses began with the death of her husband. Now, a single mother in a foreign land, her family’s next hope of provision was shattered by the death of her only two sons. In the absence of blood relatives, mother and daughters-in-law were bound by a devastating commonality: tragedy. These three childless widows had not just felt the sting of death, but had also fallen to now become one of the lowest and most destitute classes of the ancient world.

Amazingly, at least in these first portions of scripture, it does not say Naomi succumbed to her grief and closed herself off from Orpah and Ruth. Naomi still felt a responsibility toward these two women who now depended on her, and her initial reaction is characteristically selfless. The passage reads, "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. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband" (Ruth 1:8-9 NIV).

No one is denying that the circumstances leading up to this moment were justified cause for exhaustion, devastation, and defeat. No one is denying that if there was ever a time to be selfish and wallow in self-pity, this was it. By all common sense, what Naomi urged was the wise thing to do in the midst of grief. But beyond what she said, Naomi modeled a truth that set the rest of the story in motion: if you truly desire more for your children and have nothing left to give (no time, no energy, no finances, no outside help or support), confront the famine by giving them a blessing. In fact, as this passage of Scripture highlights, Naomi had everything of value. And it was delivered in the form of her simple, meaningful blessing: May the Lord show you kindness…may the Lord grant that each of you will find rest…

This moment of surrender said: (and can certainly say for you) I may not be able to give you everything I want, but what I do want for you is everything. From the bottom of my heart, I pray you lack nothing.

As we will see in the coming day's passages, this uncomplicated yet humble act of surrendering control of the situation confronting them propels Naomi’s daughter, Ruth, into a prosperous future that lives up to the unimagined blessing she ultimately received. Often, supernatural conclusions can be traced back to humble origins, but, if you look close enough, you can see that God is in the fine details, ready and willing to work in the lives of those who are also ready and willing.

Think about these questions in your own life: Have you withheld a blessing from someone? Did that response come from a place of bitterness or jealousy? Have recent events in your life left you feeling hopeless and hollow? Are you content even with what you lack and where your circumstances have led you? What blessing have you been withholding in the hopes that you would be the one to fulfill it? What will you do now?