We will carry on looking at the book of Ruth and the lessons we can learn,we now look at Chap 1 v 19 -20.Namoi and Ruth have arrived at Bethlehem, it caused a bit of a stir ,can this be Namoi ,they asked?,Her reply was this,'Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter ', Naomi's name means ,'pleasantness,now she calls herself Mara, which means bitter,because of all she had suffered. Consider all she suffered,she had to uproot and go and live in a foreign land, the first tragedy was the death of her husband,well she still had her two sons they had married two Moabite girls,'Orpah and Ruth, so things weren't to bad,but then tragedy struck again,her sons died. So that meant she was left with no means of support.She describes her experience like this ,'I went out full, but the Lord has brought me back empty',( 1 v21)The bitterness she experinced was like drinking vinegar,but a whole lot worse,she was not bitter at the Lord, but the cup that she had to drink was bitter,even though it was from the Lord. Yes it was all from the Lord,are you surprised at that,well we shouldn't be, Sometime His discipline can be severe, but whatever God puts us through,He has his reasons, commenting on Hebrews 12v 5-6 someone writes, 'My dear child,don't shrug off God's discipline,but don't be crushed by it either.It's the child He loves that He disciplines,the child He embraces,He also corrects'.
'Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the Son of Love,
'Words F.R,Havergal'
No comments:
Post a Comment