Bitter As A Green Spring Berry

This week we leave the Book of Judges behind and move on to the Book of Ruth.  These two books take place during the same time period.  This week we will focus on our first of three friends from the Book of Ruth, Naomi. 

Naomi and her family are forced to leave the Promised Land due to famine.  She is widowed.  Her two sons accompany her on the journey to the pagan country of Moab.  There her sons marry two Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth.  Quickly we learn that her two sons die as well, leaving her with no male to protect her and her daughters-in-law. 

Read Naomi’s list of woes in Ruth 1:11-13.  Naomi is begging her daughters-in-law to go back to their families for she has nothing to offer them.  In verse 13, Naomi herself reveals her issue, bitterness.

Orpah agrees to return to her family but Ruth vows to stay with her mother-in-law. (we learn more about Ruth next week.)  Naomi and Ruth return to the Promised Land.  Look at how Naomi greets those in her hometown in Ruth 1:20-21.

The footnote in my Bible says the following about this exchange: “Naomi means ‘amiable or pleasant.’ Suggesting God’s favor to her.  The Almighty has brought evil upon me: the ancients regarded adversity as a punishment from God for personal sin, as if good and evil were always repaid in a temporal and material manner.”

Naomi believed her bitterness was caused by God.  Often times, so do we.

The good news for Naomi is that she doesn’t stay bitter.  Unfortunately many of us do.

We are going to skip ahead in this story because we will be spending three weeks in this four chapter book.  By the time we are finished you will know the Book of Ruth and its three main characters very well.

Anyway, Naomi helps Ruth (next week’s girlfriend) snag Boaz (the week after’s best man), her Kinsman Redeemer.  Read Ruth 4:14.  This grandson of Ruth is Obed, who is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Ruth 4:16 tells us that Naomi placed Obed on her lap.  This is an expression meaning treated him like he was her own son.  Surely Naomi’s tears had been turned into dancing.

This week let’s look at the role bitterness plays in our own lives.  The dictionary describes bitterness as “severe pain, suffering, marked by intensity and severity, grief, regret, deep-seated resentment, hard, discontented, disgruntled.”

Bitterness leaves a person hard.  It takes away any softness we possess and makes us brittle, inside and out.  Naomi refused to let a period of sadness define her.  All too often, people do not do what Naomi did.  Are you one of them?

Ask yourself the following questions:

Have I ever felt that God was the cause for sorrow in my life?

Do I allow my bitterness define me?

When have my tears been turned into dancing?

Do I have deep-seated resentment about things in my life?

Am I discontented?

What can I learn from Naomi?

How can God address my bitterness?  Have I allowed Him to?