Wine and Vinegar. (Ruth chapter one)

Raymond Brown on Moses said the following,''Israel's leader  must have faced many a day with a heavy heart. These Biblical characters did not belong to a make- believe world where , because they loved God, everything automatically went well for them. Their experience hardly supports the optimistic euphoria of the' prosperity theology' people,with their assurance of wealth and health. The Bible is more honest. When we have, as the Puritan Richard Baxter says,'wine and vinegar in the same cup'.Well many of us while not holding to the prosperity theology teaching,need to take to heart, what Richard Baxter said,my personal life experience as a Christian would agree .Yes it is hard when painful things happen in the Christians life, after all the Christian reads the Psalms, and the wonderful promises there,yet the man who wrote most of those Psalms experienced a great deal of trouble in his life.Right throughout  the Bible we read of godly people yes experiencing blessing.but I think of Naomi a godly lady,whose husband ,and two sons died,and who was left destitute,They  had  gone to the land of Moab,to escape a famine in their own country,but then she and her daughter -in-law returned to Israel.When she returned her neighbours said,''Can this be Naomi?'',Her reply was this ,''don't call me Naomi which means pleasant,call me Mara'', which means bitter. Yes Richard Baxter was so right in what he said,that the Christian life is a wine and vinegar experience.