After a tragedy hits, whether it is a personal or family tragedy, or a larger one, we sometimes might hear someone pray for God to bring something good out of what happened. We might wonder what possible good could ever come from this? They just lost their home and every belonging in a fire, or they just lost their pension due to crooks in their former company, or several people in their family died in an accident. What good could possibly happen? Our Old Testament reading this week describes a devastating tragedy that happened to one woman. Can God lift her out of this and bring good back into her life? Let’s look and see.
The Book of Ruth is a short book of only four chapters, nestled between the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel, and it takes place during the time of the judges, a time when the people of Israel swayed back and forth between obeying God and then worshiping pagan gods. During times of disobedience, the Lord would often send enemy nations to conquer parts of the land for a while, or He would send crop failure to bring famine, or a drought. As we begin reading our Scripture, we see that there was a famine. It got so bad that a gentleman named Elimelech felt the need to take his wife and two sons and leave their home of Bethlehem and travel into the foreign country of Moab, which was not affected by this famine (vs. 1-2). He seems to have settled right in among his Moabite neighbors, despite their being pagans and enemies of both Israel and Yahweh, as he got wives for his sons from among them. However, while there Elimelech died, and then his two sons, Mahlon and Chilion also died. That left a destitute widow Naomi and her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah (vs. 3-5).
This is a tragic situation that Naomi finds herself in now. She was an older woman in a foreign country, now a widow with no husband or son to care for her. In those days a woman couldn’t just go out and get a job. Women were dependent on their husbands to care for them, and if he died hopefully she had a son to take her in. Sometimes a son-in-law might, but without any of them, a widow would be left to beg in order to survive. Would God bring good out of this? Naomi heard the famine was over, so she decided to return to her hometown, and maybe some relatives might have pity on her and take her in (vs. 6-7). As she leaves, Naomi tells her daughters-in-law to return to their families. They were Moabites and pagans, and Israel was no place for them. However, Ruth refused to go. She had come to faith in Yahweh, and would not leave the mother-in-law she loves to some unknown fate (vs. 8-18).
Let’s look at the decisions that have been made so far in this narrative. Elimelech made the decision to flee to a pagan country rather than trusting in Yahweh. God had warned his people against joining with the pagan nations around them. Yes, perhaps Elimelech had felt at the time that he had no choice, as there was a famine in the land. However, that decision was not one of faith, but of pragmatism, and a believer needs to trust in God no matter what is happening in life. When we face hardships, we need to trust in God’s provision, rather than looking to a worldly solution.
Elimelech and Naomi had also decided to take pagan women as wives for their sons. God had specifically warned against this (Deuteronomy 7:3-4). Sometimes we justify marrying an unsaved person by saying that we might lead that unsaved person to the Lord, but more often than not, that does not happen. Fortunately for Naomi, her one daughter-in-law Ruth, a loving and caring young woman, did turn to Yahweh with her whole heart! God brought good out of that wrong decision to marry their sons to unsaved women, as Ruth came to saving faith.
Naomi’s life and witness were influential in bringing Ruth to salvation. When Naomi decided to return to her people, she had urged both Ruth and Orpah to return to their Moabite families. Ruth, now a believer, did not want to go back to a pagan culture and life. She chose to stay with Naomi, and Naomi’s God. Her faith was a true one, and was marked by forsaking her old life and embracing God’s people and promises. Yahweh was not only for the Israelites. If a foreigner, a Gentile like Ruth the Moabitess, came to Him in faith, He would accept them, too.
When Naomi returned to Bethlehem, she told her friends and family to no longer call her Naomi, a name which means “good” or “pleasant". Instead she told them to call her Mara, which means “bitter”, as she felt that God had dealt bitterly with her. She was choosing at that time to only see the tragedy in her life. Yet God was going to bring good out of this. If she would have chosen to look at the good, she would have remembered that Ruth had come with her. If you read further in the book you will see how Ruth goes to work in the farm fields to earn a living for her and Naomi, thus saving them both from ruin. Naomi didn’t have to do that herself, which she would have if Ruth hadn’t come. Later when Ruth makes a good marriage, she brings Naomi into her new family, too. Ruth loved her, and would not abandon her. That was another goodness the Lord blessed her with. She got to be, in a sense, a grandmother to Ruth’s children, which was another blessing for her.
The greatest goodness and blessing that the Lord brought from this tragedy was that Ruth became the great-grandmother of King David, and thus also in the family line of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, who would redeem all mankind from their sins. Without the choices that were made, and without this tragedy happening, none of that would have happened. Even in seasons of loss and uncertainty, God is quietly weaving redemption into the story. God can, and does, bring good out of tragedy.
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