“Call me not Naomi, call me Mara: for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty: why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the LORD hath testified against me, and the Almighty hath afflicted me?”
-Ruth 1:20-21
“Ruth Declares Her Loyalty to Naomi” – Pieter Lastman, Public Domain Image
Like Naomi, we are often so quick to blame God for our hardships and credit ourselves for our blessings. A famine drove Naomi’s family out of the promised land, and only a famine brought her back. Wherever the rumor of prosperity was, there she went, not trusting in the providence of the Lord. If there was famine in the land of Israel in Naomi’s day, it was a result of sin and disobedience (Deuteronomy 28:16-18). So, rather than repent and plead for mercy, Naomi’s family fled the promised land altogether and joined themselves to a heathen nation, as if there is anywhere we can hide from God.
In this passage Naomi forgets that she has not been brought back empty. Ruth has cleaved to her and to her God, embracing the reproach of widowhood in a foreign land in order to worship the true God. Ruth is described as better to Naomi than seven sons (Ruth 4:15), and yet when we are in the gall of bitterness it is impossible to remember God’s great mercy and kindness toward us. We tend to focus on what we lack and forget all the good things the Lord has given us. “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (Romans 8:6).
Fortunately for us there is nothing that can ever separate us from the love of Christ, not “tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine… (Romans 8:35). Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth (Deuteronomy 8:5, Proverbs 13:24, Hebrews 12:6-7). We should not be too hard on Naomi because we are all too much like her and as the Lord remembers that we are but flesh, so too must we be patient with ourselves and others. He is faithful, even when we are not.
"The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: None of them that trust in him shall be desolate."
- Psalm 34:22
Selah.
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