Never abandoned

After such a depressing book in Judges, it’s nice to have a book like Ruth right after it.

But it starts out as depressingly as Judges ends.  A woman named Naomi, moves with her husband and sons to Moab because of a famine in Israel.

While there, her two sons marry Moabite women, but one by one, the men in Naomi’s life pass away.  First her husband, and then her sons.

Now she’s widowed, with both of her beloved children gone.  And so she decides to go back to Israel.

When she arrives, the women in her hometown greet her joyously, saying, “Can this be Naomi?”

But Naomi replies, “Don’t call me that.  My life isn’t pleasant anymore (the name Naomi means pleasant).  Call me ‘bitter’  (the name Mara means bitter).  For the Lord has afflicted me, and has brought misfortune upon me.  I went away full.  But now I am empty.” (Ruth 1:20-21)

Naomi felt abandoned by God.  Not only did she feel abandoned by God, she felt like God was out to get her.

But God had never abandoned her, not even in her darkest time.

He gave her a daughter-in-law in Ruth that truly loved her, and was willing to give up everything she had for Naomi.

When Naomi tried to convince her to stay in Moab, Ruth told her,

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 my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.

May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.  (1:16-17)

But at that point, Naomi couldn’t see the blessing.  Instead she blamed God for her misery.  But God didn’t abandon her even then.

When Ruth went to glean wheat as other poor people did in those days, God led Ruth to a relative of Naomi’s husband, a man named Boaz, and she unknowingly started to glean in his field.

Boaz noticed her, and showed favor to her.  And when Ruth came back with far more barley than would’ve been expected, and also brought back some food Boaz had given her, Naomi was shocked and asked Ruth where she had gone.

When Ruth told her, all of sudden, Naomi realized,

[God] has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.  (Ruth 2:20)

In other words, “God hasn’t abandoned me after all.  He really does still care.”

How about you?  Do you feel abandoned by God because of your circumstances?  Do you feel like God is out to get you?  Are you so blinded by your pain, that you can’t see the good that God is trying to do in your life?

God never has, and never will abandon you.  He loves you.  And no matter what you’re going through, his hand will always be upon you.

I love a song by Dallas Holm that says,

The eyes of God are upon me,
He sees everything I do.
The arms of God are around me,
They keep me safe and secure.

He knows where I am
Every hour of every day
He knows each thought I think
He knows each word that I might say.

And although there have been times
I’ve been out of His will
I’ve never been out of His care.