Good morning my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
You have noticed I’m sure, that when something goes wrong, rarely does anyone stand up and admit fault or take responsibility. Usually BLAME is the response, have you seen that? These next months in America will be difficult because it’s an election year and the airwaves will be filled with blame and accusations. Of course, blame began in the Garden of Eden didn’t it, when Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent for disobeying God’s instructions? (Gen. 3:12,13)
Sadly, we all live in the mess of our sinful world caused by that problem. Yesterday I left you with widow Naomi and her Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth beginning their trek from Moab, where Naomi and her family had moved to find refuge from a famine, going back to her home Bethlehem. Let’s rejoin them…
Ruth had made one of the most powerful statements ever spoken by someone when stepping into a lifelong commitment, she said: “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 I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates us.” (Ruth 1:16,17)
Ruth, a Moabite woman who also had lost her husband, Naomi’s son, to death, was willing to leave her homeland and accompany her widowed mother-in-law Naomi back to Bethlehem in Israel and do whatever was necessary to care for Naomi. Is there any relationship you have which reflects this depth of commitment, my friends?
The journey for these two widows would have been arduous for the road was rugged, the sun was hot, and bandits frequented this road, yet for the hope of going home to Bethlehem, Naomi trudged along and for the commitment of caring for her, Ruth walked at her side. Look at them… two widowed women, feeling all alone in the world. It’s a picture of so many people in our world today, isn’t it? It may even be you feel all alone today!
But God is always watching every person and everything that happens in our world, and these women didn’t have any idea that God was working His much larger plan, and they would both eventually have a part in it.
The Ruth record says: “So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred and the women exclaimed, ‘Can this be Naomi’? But Naomi said, ‘Don’t call me Naomi, called me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I left Bethlehem 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)
Oh my! It’s not difficult to hear Naomi’s pain, is it? In fact, it sounds like deep rooted bitterness, doesn’t it? Oh, it’s one thing to blame your spouse or your parents or your boss or the political leaders of your country for your misfortune or your personal pain, but it’s an entirely different thing to blame God, and that’s exactly what Naomi is doing! We, of course, have no explanation of what Naomi’s relationship with God was before she and her family fled Bethlehem in the time of famine looking for food in Moab. But clearly the circumstances of her life, including the terrible loss of her husband and both sons to death, have left Naomi hard hearted, bitter and angry at God. Now let’s pause and ponder that.
Do you know anyone who is angry at God and blaming God for the pain in their life?
We often speak of God being Sovereign over all things and that usually means we want to hold God responsible for everything that happens, especially the painful, terrible things. So, what does it mean that God is Sovereign, especially when times are difficult or even tragic and innocent people are being hurt or killed? There are three key words that really only apply to Almighty God that we need to consider:
OMNIPOTENT which means ALL POWERFUL! There are no limits to God’s POWER, right? He created this universe and sustains it. (Col. 1:15-17; Gen.1)
God creates every human being and sustains our life every second. The Bible is filled with the stories of God unleashing His unlimited power here on earth into impossible situations. Perhaps you’ve experienced some miracles of Almighty, Omnipotent God in your life?
The second word is OMNISCIENT. It means ALL KNOWING.
There is no limit to the knowledge or understanding of God. God knows everything past, present and future, everywhere in the Universe. Hebrews 4:13; Psalm 139 and so many other Scriptures declare this truth.
The third word is OMNIPRESENT. It means God is everywhere, always.
Psalm 139:7 says it like this: “Where can I go to be away from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the hightest heavens, You are there, if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me…even the darkness is not dark to You, O God, the night will shine like the day for darkness is as light to You.”
When we declare that God is Sovereign over all things, it means God is present everywhere and FULLY aware of all that is happening, and He understands everything far better than any person does. And also, it means God has unlimited power to do anything He chooses to do, anywhere in the universe at any time. God is Sovereign means God has all authority and total freedom to exercise His authority over all things at all times.
But Sovereignty does NOT mean everything that happens is by God’s design or desire! When humanity rejected God and invited Satan into our world, and as we continue to do that everywhere in the world in every generation, now God is daily faced with the challenge of His perfect, Holy purposes for humanity and our world being constantly opposed by sinful humans God has created in His image and Satan and his demons, all of whom do not want God’s perfect Holy purposes to be active in our world! Do you see the problem?
Naomi’s harsh words flowed out from a deeply wounded, perhaps even angry heart. Years before she and her family had been forced to leave their home in search of food to survive due to a terrible drought and famine which had struck their part of the world. In Naomi’s mind, God is in control of the climate and all that is needed for crops to grow to nourish humans and animals.
Therefore, Naomi felt it was fair to hold God responsible for the absence of rain and the subsequent famine! Naomi and family fled to Moab, a neighboring country which was not particularly hospitable to Jews, but at least they had food so they were willing to live with whatever persecution they might face in order to have food. But of course, Naomi could easily have been angry that from her perspective God was supplying rain for food to the Moabites but not to the Israelites around Bethlehem.
And finally, of course, Naomi was very angry that first her husband then her two grown sons had all died while they lived as refugees in Moab. Death has a way of stirring up very deep emotions, even anger toward God whom we hold responsible for sustaining life, and perhaps you know some people who both grieve and nurture anger toward God because their loved one has died?
I’ve often wondered what Ruth thought and felt as she and Naomi arrived in Bethlehem and in response to a wonderful ‘welcome home’ from the women of the town toward their friend Naomi, instead of gratitude Naomi unleashed this avalanche of anger toward God?
But if we are honest, we’ve all been there, haven’t we? We’ve all experienced deep disappointment, broken promises, injustice, unfairness, bullying, even persecution. We’ve all experienced accidents or been hurt by the mistakes, or worse yet the evil intentions of other people. Look around our world today and there are hundreds of millions of people whose lives are being shattered by natural disasters or gang clashes or drug war lords or terrorism or outright warfare or political corruption.
The question for all of us then is ‘who is to blame for this pain we bear’? Is God resonsible for it all? Is it fair for us to blame God when wickedness is rampant in our world?
Now rather than giving a simple answer, I think it’s very appropriate for us to pause right here, looking at two widows in pain, looking at war in Ukraine and Israel, looking at famine in Africa and so much more… and then look at our hearts, each of us. What do we see down deep inside ourselves? Do we feel like Naomi? Who is to blame for all the pain, and is there a path out of the pain?
Here’s a new original song to help us consider it and let’s meet back here tomorrow to find some answers.
Today’s Scripture is Ruth 1:16-21.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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