WHAT NAOMI DID NOT SEE

“Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” Ruth 1:20-21

I have seen many going through great suffering the past few months including myself. The Book of Ruth is a book that can bring great comfort, perspective, and faith when prolonged suffering or sudden calamity sets upon us. I have found great comfort here as I have silently contemplated this story. What especially has been helpful for me, is reading stories in the Bible that so resonate with my own experience.

Naomi lived during the time of the Judges in Israel and suffered greatly. First, a severe famine came over the land. Naomi knew that God was the one who sent the famine. She said, “The Almighty has brought calamity upon me” (1:21).

The her husband dies after the family moves to Moab. So when Naomi’s husband dies (Ruth 1:3), what could she feel but that the judgment of God had followed her and added grief to famine? “The hand of the Lord has gone out against me” (1:13).

Then her two sons take Moabite wives, one named Orpah, the other named Ruth (1:4). And again the hand of God falls. Verse 5 sums up Naomi’s tragedy after ten years of childless marriages: “Both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.” A famine, a move to pagan Moab, the death of her husband, the marriage of her sons to foreign wives, ten years of apparent childlessness for both of her daughters-in-law, and the death of her sons—the pain, suffering, and trials are relentless.

In verse 6, Naomi gets word that “the Lord had visited his people and given them food.” So she decides to return. to Judah. Her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, go with her, partway it seems, but then in verses 8–13 she tries to persuade them to go back home. In verse 11 Naomi says, ‘Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?’” In other words, Naomi has nothing to offer them. Her condition is worse than theirs. If they try to be faithful to her and to the name of their husbands, they will find nothing but pain. So she concludes at the end of verse 13, “No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me.” In other words, Don’t come with me because God is against me. Your life may become as bitter as mine.

But little does Naomi know what God has in store for her beyond all of this pain and suffering. It was God who broke the famine and opened the way home (1:6). It will be God who preserved a kinsman named Boaz to continue Naomi’s line (2:20). And it will be God who will constrain Ruth to stay with Naomi. But Naomi is so broken, devastated, and grief stricken by God’s hard providence that she does not see His mercy at work in her life.

So Ruth and Naomi return together to Bethlehem in Judah. “And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, ‘Is this Naomi?’” (1:19). That is a painful question not only because they see that she is older and with no husband and no sons, but also because the name Naomi means “pleasant” or “sweet.” So she responds,

Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me? (Ruth 1:20–21)

Naomi is unshaken and sure about three things: God exists, God is sovereign, and God has afflicted her. What Naomi does not see is that God is working even the most bitter providences for His good and glory (Romans 8:28; Genesis 50:20). She needed to open her eyes—the eyes of her heart—to the signs of his merciful purposes.

Day by day, and with each passing moment,Strength I find, to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment, I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.He whose heart is kind beyond all measure,Gives unto each day what He deems best—Lovingly,its part of pain and pleasure,Mingling toil with peace and rest. Karolina W. Sandell-Berg, “Day by Day”

Naomi saw a glimmer of light that it was God who took away the famine and opened a way home. Naomi “had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food” (1:6). Just as surely as God brought the famine, God took it away. Naomi could see that. But she could not see all that God was doing. Later she will be able to look back, in the same way we can often look back in God's workings in our own lives and see the pointers of hope for our present.

I look back in my own life back in April and thought I might be homeless by June. I was frightened, depressed, stressed, anxious and saw nothing but darkness ahead for my future. Now here I am writing at the end of September and God,through incredible acts of providence, has wonderfully taken care of me, comforted and sustained me, and graced me to be on a Sabbatical after 33 years of ministry! Who knew?

I have written before that there are millions of micro-reasons for God doing what He does that He has chosen not to reveal to us (Deuteronomy 29:29). Most of the time we have not a clue. That is why we must ground ourselves with an iron hold onto the things He has revealed to us in His Word, His macro-reasons.

Oh that when we see only bitter providence's in our lives like Naomi, that we would ask God to give us sight, light that would rise us to see beyond the darkness a wonderful, loving, kind, merciful, purposeful, sovereign God who works 24/7 (Psalm 121).

Naomi says in verse 21, “The Lord has brought me back empty.” She may have emotionally felt that but this is not true! What would Naomi say if she could see only a fraction of the thousands of things God was doing in the bitter providence's of her life? What would we say? Listen to what a poet well acquainted with emotional pain, despair, and suffering named William Cowper wrote:

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
William Cowper

Do we believe that God "moves in mysterious ways"? What if I knew back in April what God would do over the next five months in my life? What if Naomi knew that God was choosing an “unclean” outsider, a Moabitess—just like he chose Rahab the prostitute (Matthew 1:5; Joshua 2:1) and Tamar who played the prostitute (Matthew 1:3; Genesis 38:15)—as the kind of person he wanted in the bloodline of his Son? What if she knew that part of what God was doing was shaping a genealogy for the Messiah that would humble the world?

What if Naomi could see that in Ruth she would gain a man-child, and that this man-child would be the grandfather of the greatest king of Israel, and that this king of Israel would be the ancestor of the King of kings, Jesus Christ, the Lord of the universe? If she had trusted God that such things were in the offing, she may have said like the poet William Cowper wrote,

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face

Looking at that smiling face beyond my gloom,

Pastor Bill