The old widow was bitter, and she didn’t try to keep it a secret. “I’ve got nothing,“ she moaned, “absolutely nothing. I used to be full of good things, but now I’m empty. I used to have a home, a husband, and two sons. But now I haven’t got anybody. God has taken it all away. My life used to be sweet, but now it’s bitter—and it’s all God’s doing. That’s my main problem, you know: God is against me.“
When you hear this widow’s cry, how do you react? If life is going well for you, you might rather just avoid her complaint and not think any more about it. But if you’ve suffered a lot of trouble yourself, you may identify with her and say, “I feel the same way. My life is miserable. It seems God is out to get me.“
So let’s try to understand this woman. What happened that made her so bitter? Was God really against her? Did she stay stuck in her bitterness or did things turn around? Her story is a gripping one, and it can show us a lot about ourselves and about what God is doing in our lives. The woman’s name is Naomi, and the Bible book of Ruth tells her story.
Bitter Losses
Naomi lived in a nasty time in Israel’s early history. It was a time of no authority, no stability, just people doing whatever they felt like doing, no matter how bad or barbaric. If you live today in a crime—infested neighborhood overrun by gangs, or in region tormented by continual war, out—of—control armies, and or vicious criminals and terrorists with nobody really in charge, you’ve got a sense of the general situation in Israel during this period, known as the time of the judges.
Now put yourself in Naomi’s shoes. You yourself worship the Lord, but your society is full of false religion, immorality, danger, and nastiness of every kind. That’s hard, even scary at times. But at least you still have a private, personal haven of happiness and security, living at home with your husband and two sons. Soon, however, trouble strikes close to home.
A famine, a severe food shortage, hits the land. In our world today some famines result from bad weather and poor crop conditions, while other famines come when gangs and lawlessness ruin an economy or when politicians and armies use food as a weapon and try to starve their enemies. The Bible doesn’t say what caused the famine that affected Naomi and her family, but whatever the cause, the famine was real. Even Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem was hard—hit. The name Bethlehem means “house of bread,“ so Bethlehem may well have been considered the “bread basket“ of the region. But even breadbasket Bethlehem was caught in the famine.
How awful that must have been! If you’ve grown accustomed to feeling fairly secure, it’s dreadful to find that you suddenly have no source of steady income for your family and you don’t know where your next meal will come from. Things looked so bleak to Naomi’s family that they decided their best chance was to get out of Bethlehem, leave the land of Israel for a while, and see if they could find work and food in the foreign country of Moab. Struck by famine, uprooted from their homeland, living as refugees in a foreign country—that would be bad enough, but the worst was yet to come.
Naomi’s husband died and left her a widow. If you’re a person who has lost a spouse, you know how crushing it is to lose someone you’ve loved and depended on for so long. But that still wasn’t the end of Naomi’s troubles. Her sons, probably against her wishes, married Moabite girls, pagan young women who had grown up serving other gods—not exactly the kind of wives a God—fearing mother would want her sons to marry. But the two sons were grown men by that time, making their own decisions, and they married the women they wanted to marry. Though it may have been a heartache for Naomi, she learned to get along with her daughters—in—law. But then came the final blow. After about ten years in their new country, Naomi’s sons both died. Put yourself in Naomi’s place: You’re a refugee in a strange land. Your husband is dead. Your sons are dead. What bitter losses!
“God Is Against Me!“
Then came news from Naomi’s homeland: Israel was prospering again. The Bible says,
- When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters—in—law [Ruth and Orpah] prepared to return home from there. With her two daughters—in—law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
Then Naomi said to her two daughters—in—law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.“
Then she kissed them and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.“
- But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me——even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons——would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has gone out against me!“ (Ruth 1:6—13)
Naomi was telling Ruth and Orpah, “I appreciate your concern and kindness, but for your own good, you’d better leave me. You don’t have any future with me, because I don’t have a future.“
Why didn’t Naomi think there was any future with her? One reason had to do with a custom of that time. If a man died without leaving any children, his brother or closest relative was to marry his widow and have children with her. The first child they had together would be counted as the dead man’s and would inherit the dead man’s land. But what hope did this custom hold for Ruth and Orpah? Naomi’s sons were dead; she had no others; and she couldn’t think of any other relatives of her husband back home who would marry Ruth or Orpah. So if these young women wanted any hope of a husband or family, they had better forget about Naomi and start over somewhere else. That was Naomi’s first reason for telling them to leave her and return to Moab.
But Naomi had a second and stronger reason: “God is against me. I’m jinxed. I’m under a curse. So do yourselves a favor and make a fresh start without me. I’m just a dead end. God is against me, and if you stay close to me, you may get clobbered too. You young women deserve better. You deserve another chance at a good life. May the Lord bless you in it. It’s worse for me than for you. You still have possibilities; I don’t. How can I have a future when I’m under attack by the Lord himself?“
“Your God Will Be My God“
When Naomi told her daughters—in—law to go back, did she really mean it? Sometimes we say things we don’t really mean, or we say things that part of us means, but that another part of us isn’t so sure of. Did Naomi really want Ruth and Orpah to leave her, or was she simply offering them the chance, hoping secretly that they would say, “No, we’ll stick with you.“
Whatever Naomi may have been thinking, her words were enough to convince Orpah to leave her. Orpah cared about her mother—in—law and felt bad for her, but she wanted to get on with her life. Orpah kissed her mother—in—law good—by, but Ruth clung to her.
- “Look,“ said Naomi, “your sister—in—law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.“
But Ruth replied, “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 will I be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.“ When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. (Ruth 1:14—18)
What an astonishing development! What love and loyalty! Ruth didn’t start out loving Naomi so much, and she didn’t start out with faith in Naomi’s God. Ruth started out as an idol worshiper who happened to meet a guy from Israel, Naomi’s son. When Ruth married him, she was she was willing to put up with his family’s religion, but it didn’t start out as anything deep or heartfelt. But at some point, whether through her husband or her mother—in—law, Ruth discovered that their God was the living and true God, and she became so devoted that she wouldn’t let go of the Lord or the family that introduced her to him.
Many people still today come in contact with God in ways that seem almost accidental. You marry somebody, and their religion is no big deal to you. Their beliefs don’t bother you enough to refuse marriage, and you even go along with any rituals that are necessary, but religion seems like one of the lesser parts of the marriage package. However, as things develop, you reach a decisive moment. You find that have to choose one way or the other, once for all, whether the God and Father of Jesus Christ is really your God or not. You have to answer the question: “Will the God I first met as someone else’s God now be my God too?“ For Orpah the answer was no. For Ruth the answer was yes—a resounding yes! What’s your answer? Is the God of the Bible your God? Maybe you first met Jesus as someone else’s Lord, but has he become your Lord too, personally and totally and forever?
Ruth’s commitment to Naomi and to the Lord God is amazing, and it’s all the more amazing in light of what Naomi had been telling her. Naomi said, “God is against me.“ Ruth’s reply was, “Maybe so, but he’s the living and true God, the only God there is. So whether he’s for us or against us, your God is my God.“ Naomi cried, “I’m a dead end.“ Ruth replied, “Maybe so, but if you’re a dead end, then I’ll die where you die and be buried there too.“ What love! Sometimes depressed people try to chase friends and family away, but the truly loyal ones stick with them even in their misery. Naomi had nothing to offer Ruth except a bitter attitude and an empty future. But Ruth loved Naomi too much to leave her, and she loved the God of Israel too much to go back to her own gods.
The Almighty
- So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, ’Can this be Naomi?’“
“Don’t call me Naomi [which means pleasant or sweet,“ she told them. “Call me Mara [which means bitter], because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.“ (Ruth 1:19—21)
What do we make of this depressed widow who wants to drop her name, Sweet Naomi, and be called Bitter Mara instead, because the Almighty marred her life? Well, in fairness to Naomi, she was right about two things. First, she was right that it had indeed been a bitter decade. There’s no denying the agony and sorrow she endured in the famine, the death of her dear husband, and the deaths of both her sons. The years and the tears had taken such a toll on Naomi that the people who had known her ten years earlier could hardly recognize her.
Naomi was also right about something else. She was right to see the hand of God in her bitter experiences. Nowadays many people pretend that God has nothing to do with the painful parts of life. They may believe in a god of sorts, but their god is too nice to hurt a fly, and he’d never send such awful pain into the lives of his people. Naomi knew better. She knew that her God is the Almighty, the living Lord who directs every event, even the painful ones. He rules over even the wildest of nations and the most wicked of situations. Nothing that happens can escape his plan and purpose. All things come to us not by chance but from his hand. He sends food, and he sends famine. He gives a husband, and he takes that husband away. He gives children, and he takes those children away. Absolutely nothing can happen to us apart from his will. This God of Naomi is the same God revealed by Jesus when he said that not a bird can fall from the sky and not a hair can fall from your head apart from the will of the heavenly Father. So even in her bitterness, Naomi was right to see the Almighty the ruler in all things.
But Naomi was not right to think God was against her. It’s understandable that she felt that way after such terrible loss, but that doesn’t mean she was right. Even when God made life hard and seemed to be against her, he was planning and arranging things for the good of Naomi and Ruth and all God’s people.
Not So Empty, After All
Naomi was not right when she said God was against her, and she was not right when she said God had left her empty. Empty? What about Ruth, who showed her such love and loyalty, who swore to stick with her no matter what? How could Naomi say she had nothing when she had Ruth? How did that make Ruth feel? People like Naomi can be so despairing and depressed that they seem not to notice or value the people who still love them. At times like that, their dear ones must try not to take it too personally, and instead stick with them until better times come.
Grief—stricken people often exaggerate their troubles and forget what they still have going for them. Naomi overlooked Ruth, and she overlooked someone else. Remember how Naomi earlier told her daughters—in—law that her family was a dead end and that there were no relatives for them to marry? Well, she had forgotten someone. Right after the Bible records Naomi’s bitter complaint that God was against her, it says that Ruth was with her and that harvest was just beginning Bethlehem, and then the Bible adds: “Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side? a man of standing, whose name was Boaz.“ Naomi had forgotten about Boaz. But God hadn’t.
Just when Naomi thought she had nobody to stick with her, God gave her Ruth. Just when Naomi thought she was empty, God was starting a fresh harvest. Just when Naomi forgot Boaz, God brought this wealthy and godly man into the story. Just when Naomi thought her family’s future was dead, God was making plans to bring Naomi and Ruth and Boaz into a family line that would become the greatest family line in human history.
As events unfolded, God arranged for Ruth to meet Boaz. The two of them got married and had a baby. This baby brought joy to Grandma Naomi. We don’t have time for all the details now, but let’s just say that by the halfway point of the book of Ruth, Naomi is praising the Lord and saying, “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead“ (2:20). And by the end of the story, the women of Bethlehem (who were stunned at Naomi’s earlier devastation) are praising God and congratulating Naomi on a newborn baby in the family and on having a daughter—in—law better than seven sons (4:14—15).
As it turned out, Naomi wasn’t so empty, after all. God wasn’t against her, after all. Naomi came to see that her dead loved ones were in God’s hand, and that the living were still in his hand as well. There is life after death, both for those who have died and for those who have to go on living. After all of Naomi and Ruth’s grief, God gave them much joy.
The Big Picture
And that’s not all. The real punch line of the book of Ruth doesn’t come till the very end, where we find out that Ruth’s baby, Naomi’s grandson, turned out to be the grandfather of King David, Israel’s greatest ruler. Almost all the way through the book of Ruth, it sounds like we’re hearing a quaint story—taking place among ordinary people. But the story turns out to be leading up to Israel’s mightiest hero, David—the conqueror of the giant Goliath, the one who defeated Israel’s enemies and united the bickering tribes into a nation, the poet and songwriter who help bring religious revival to the sinful people and strengthened faith in the one true God.
Beyond anything Naomi and Ruth could have dreamed, beyond anything that happened in their own lifetime, God raised up from their family line someone great. What started out as a story of two poor widows in a desperate predicament turned out to be the story of how God was laying the groundwork for the coming of a king. You see, Ruth and Naomi weren’t the only ones who needed help; all the people of Israel were in a desperate predicament and needed help. The sinful, confused, oppressed nation needed a rescuer and leader. God gave them David.
And many generations after David, God gave someone even greater, someone born of David’s line: Jesus, the Son of God, and the Savior of the world. Where was Jesus born? In Bethlehem, the very town where Naomi and Ruth and Boaz settled. The name Bethlehem means “house of bread,“ and it was there that Jesus, the bread of life who meets our deepest hungers, was born. The story of Naomi and Ruth turned out to be a chapter in a much bigger story: the story of King David and King Jesus.
Historians like the book of Ruth because it gives us a glimpse of Jewish history and customs from 3,000 years ago, but that’s not why it’s in God’s Book. Literary authorities, such as the brilliant author Goethe, have called the book of Ruth the most perfectly crafted short story in world literature, but that’s not why it’s in the Bible. The book of Ruth has a place in the Word of God because it shows that God has a plan and a path for each of his people, and it shows one stage in God’s plan to provide a king to save his people.
People like Naomi and Ruth and Boaz weren’t really movers and shakers in their time. But God works in the lives of ordinary people. Every story is part of a bigger story. Some of us act as though nothing in this world matters except what happens to me and the few people I happen to know. But God’s plan isn’t just about me and the people I happen to know. God cares deeply about each one of us, but God’s plan is as wide as the world, as wide as the entire universe. Some of us have a bad habit of acting as though the world started five minutes before we were born and will vanish the moment we die. But God’s plan is much bigger than the lifetime of any one person. The almighty, everlasting God deals not just in moments and days and years but in generations—and centuries and millennia and eternities! The full significance of my life and actions may not become apparent in my lifetime. It may not show up until a few generations down the road, or even until eternity. Meanwhile, I walk by faith, not by sight. I don’t always see where I fit in the big picture, but God does.
The true story of Naomi and Ruth isn’t just a gripping story of personal tragedy followed by a happy ending; it’s a story of God’s plan unfolding in the lives of ordinary people and making them part of something amazing and glorious. It’s a story of ordinary people facing troubles, trusting God, making promises, keeping promises, saying prayers, seeing God answer those prayers, doing what they can and counting on God to bless them, and somehow, in it all, being caught up in God’s glorious plan and linked to the Savior, Jesus Christ.
If you’re a child of God, if you’ve endured almost more than you can bear, if you have no hope for the future and think God is against you, take heart. When you’re at the end of your rope, remember that God is at the other end. If you could somehow phone heaven and talk with Naomi, she would tell you, “Look what happened in my life. God was working all things for my good, for the good of his people, for the good of the whole world, even when I was bitter and thought God was against me.“
The God who sometimes makes life hard and bitter for the moment is doing things greater than you or I can possibly imagine. When Naomi cried, “The Almighty is against me,“ God still had a bright future for her. When Jesus was dying on the cross and cried, “My God, why have you forsaken me?“ God still had a bright future for his Son. He would raise Jesus from the death and bring resurrection life to all his people. God has a plan centered in Jesus Christ, which includes all who trust and love him. In Romans 8:28 the Bible says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.“
So believe God’s Book, the Bible, and put your faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. Know that everything in your life happens according to God’s plan for you, and know that his plan for you personally is part of a grand and glorious plan that he has for the whole universe. Know that all of it relates to the Lord Jesus Christ, and that he walks with you each step of journey. You may encounter many twists and turns along the way, but it’s all part of the path God has planned for you. You may endure many troubles and obstacles on your road to glory, but you will get there if God is your God.
David Feddes
Dr. David Feddes is pastor of Family of Faith Church and provost of Christian Leaders Institute, which supports mentor-based ministry training through online courses. David is also adjunct missiologist for Crossroad Bible Institute, which provides biblical distance education to more than 40,000 people in prison. Previously he served as broadcast minister for the Back to God radio program, reaching people in more than fifty countries. David earned his Ph.D. in intercultural studies from Trinity International University, Deerfield, IL and is a graduate of Calvin Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Wendy, have nine children (one in heaven).
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