If there is anyone out there in the great world who feels that the Lord has given him (her) a bitter cup to drink, this mini-message is for you.
The lady’s sad lament (who said He had done that to her), has found its way into God’s Bible: Naomi is responding to the warm greetings of her fellow townspeople in Bethlehem when she returns from decades of exile in a foreign land. They’re asking, Is this beaten-down woman really our beloved sunshine girl of long ago—Naomi? “Don’t call me by my childhood name ‘Delightful,’ she pleads; “call me ‘Bitter’ [Mara], for the Almighty God has made my life bitter.” A very discouraging feeling for anyone’s heart.
Indeed, she has been dealt not a double but a triple blow of heart-rending misfortune. “When I left here, I had plenty [a loving husband and two wonderful sons], but the Lord has brought me back without a thing. ... The Lord Almighty has condemned me and sent me trouble”(Ruth 1:20, 21, GNB).
Here’s a classic case of a sincere soul believing Calvinist predestination; all the nearly endless miles of that weary trudge back from Moab to Bethlehem, Naomi has been thinking of her bitter cup of triple bereavement. Now it looks like the Lord (whose sacred name she has invoked) will snuff her little light out of Israel’s roster. If you have lost husband and sons to death, you in Israel face a bleak future; Naomi’s plight is the saddest we read of in Israel in the Bible.
But wait a moment: she has forgotten something: she has salvaged out of her life-wreckage a daughter-in-law. And she is the one who gets the name of this happiest book in the Bible. Slowly she and Ruth inch their way out of hunger through reaping—the humiliating “business” of the down-and-out woman in Israel.
Just as “the Lord God” brought “an help meet” to Adam (just what he needed), so the same Lord God brought “an help meet” or appropriate for Ruth: a husband in Boaz. But she didn’t go looking for him; the Lord brought the two together.
He didn’t harshly rebuke Naomi for feeling and saying that He had brought all this misfortune on her; but let’s not repeat Naomi’s unbelief. It’s too late in the day to live it all again; the Lord is coming soon, and we want t get ready to be happy when we see Him. It’s time to believe the Lord’s New Covenant promises (Gen. 12:2, 3). No matter who you are, they are made to you, for if you believe in the Son of God you are a child of Abraham and thus “heirs according to the promise”(Gal. 3:29).
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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