Facing the Music

There comes a time when we just "through up our hands" and give in to whatever is coming our way. Sometimes it is when we are lying, we do it so often that we find we have to lie to cover the last lie that we just finally except that we must tell the truth if we are to ever have a hope of fixing the mess. Naomi must have felt the same way. Leaving Israel created one problem after another and now with the death of her two sons there was no place to go but back to Israel.

Naomi had heard there was food back in Israel so maybe things could get better, surely they couldn't get worse.

Naomi seek to "release" both Orpah and Ruth from any obligation to follow her back to Israel. She saw the situation as a hopeless one!

Ruth 1:6-13 6 Then she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the land of Moab, for she had heard in the land of Moab that the Lord had visited His people in giving them food. 7 So she departed from the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her; and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. 8 And Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, "Go, return each of you to her mother's house. May the Lord deal kindly with you as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 "May the Lord grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband." Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. 10 And they said to her, "No, but we will surely return with you to your people." 11 But Naomi said, "Return, my daughters. Why should you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? 12 "Return, my daughters! Go, for I am too old to have a husband. If I said I have hope, if I should even have a husband tonight and also bear sons, 13 would you therefore wait until they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters; for it is harder for me than for you, for the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me." NASU

However, just around the corner we will get a glimps of what God is doing. God is not a God of hopelessness but of HOPE!


Prov 23:18 18 Surely there is a future, And your hope will not be cut off.
NASU