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What
challenges are you facing today?
 Health
Financial
Career
Relationship
Uncertain
future
Burdensome
school work
The
book of Ruth begins with the family of Elimelech and his wife Naomi,
facing a time of great challenge. There is severe famine in Israel
which has led them to make a decision to move away from the little
town of Bethlehem. Their decision was to travel to Moab in search of
a better life.
The
fact that they have chosen to go to Moab is a good indication of
just how severe the famine was. You see the Israelites and the
Moabites did not like each other. Yet when faced with the choice of
staying in Israel and risk the chance of dying from starvation or
going to Moab where there was food there wasn’t much choice.
The
challenges they expected were nothing compared to the challenges
they faced. Faced with the typical challenges of moving they also
faced the challenges of discrimination and alienation. While living
in Moab, Elimelech died. Naomi was faced with the challenges of
widowhood and single parenting. She managed to survive those
challenges especially when Naomi’s sons took Moabite women for their
wives and they lived there for another ten years.
Naomi
is once again faced with more challenges when her two sons die.
Naomi’s future, to say the least, looks very bleak. A widow,
according to a foot note in the NIV Life Application Bible, “is the
worst possible thing to be in the ancient world. Widows were taken
advantage of or ignored and were almost always poverty stricken.”
Faced with perhaps her greatest challenge Naomi decided to go back
to Bethlehem.
Naomi
told her daughter-in-laws of her decision and she advised them to go
back to their mother’s house. Ruth responds to Naomi’s advice
saying, ‘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 will be my God.”
Going
to Israel with Naomi is going to present Ruth with some major
challenges. Along with the reasons listed in verses 11 – 13 that
Naomi gives to Ruth for going back home to their mother. What Naomi
doesn’t say is that because Ruth was a Moabite that she would not be
embraced by her relatives in Bethlehem. Ruth would be seen as an
immigrant. Israelites had a very negative view of immigrants. Their
deeply entrenched prejudice would mean that Ruth would be
discriminated against.
Yet
Ruth said, ‘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 will be my God.”
Faced
with great challenges Ruth acted with love, faith and loyalty. Ruth
decided to love Naomi, her people, her God regardless. Naomi’s and
Ruth’s journey of faith together led them into a future that only
God could create.
As
long as you have life, you will have challenges. The question is how
will you address those challenges? Do you trust God to create a new
future, to provide a path through your challenges?
There
is a certain harbor in Italy that can be reached only by sailing up
a narrow channel between many clusters of dangerous rocks and
shoals. Navigation is hazardous and over the years, many ships have
been wrecked.
To
guide the ships safely into port, three lights have been mounted on
three huge poles in the harbor. When the three lights are perfectly
lined up and seen as one, the ship can safely proceed up the narrow
channel.
If
the pilot sees two or three lights, he knows he is off course and in
danger.
What
are the three lights that need to line upon in your life in order to
successfully face your present challenges?
The
three lights are the three lights Ruth used. They are the same
lights Paul gives us in 1 Corinthians 13:13 Faith, Hope and Love.
What we need to learn from Naomi and Ruth is that with faith, hope
and love God will create a blessed future. For God’s mercy is for
those who fear Him, who respect Him, who are in awe of Him and who
follow Him in complete and total trust.MEN
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