Ruth 1:11-14

LET'S THINK ABOUT THIS

In that day and culture, being a widow was not easy. Like it or not, right or wrong, women relied on their husbands to provide food and protection. Naomi knew that her daughters-in-law needed to find husbands. She knew that it would be next to impossible to find those husbands in Judah. She knew firsthand what it was like to live as a widow in a foreign country. She wasn't trying to get rid of Orpah and Naomi; she simply wanted what was best for them. In a logical and rational way she tried to explain this to them. Orpah understood and decided that Naomi was right. Ruth understood as well, but she decided that she would go with Naomi anyway.
 
No one would deny that Naomi's life had taken some bitter turns. A famine had forced her family to move. Her husband and her two sons had died. But in what Naomi said, she was not blaming God. Although she was sad, her faith did not fail. Naomi learned like Job, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord by praised" (Job 1:21). She acknowledged that nothing happens in life—hers or ours—without the Lord's direction. She understood that the Lord's will is certainly done among us.

The Lord may ask us to experience some bitterness in life, but those difficult experiences always serve his purpose and our eternal good. God uses both hardship and blessing to draw us to closer to him, to teach us to rely on him and to lead us to put our trust in him. God knows our hurts. He knows our innermost secrets, our deepest agonies. The salve of his forgiveness enters into every hurtful cut, every difficult memory, every stinging sin in our lives. In the comfort of the forgiveness he gives us through Jesus, he also eases our other pains as well. And as we will see with Naomi's loss, sometimes he has a solution we can't foresee.