{"id":24867,"date":"2023-01-19T22:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T05:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/mark-16_12-20-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-01-10T21:43:22","modified_gmt":"2023-01-11T04:43:22","slug":"ruth-1_1-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/ruth-1_1-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes Things Will Get Bitter Before They Get Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruth 1:1-13\u00a0 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today we begin the book of\u00a0Ruth, a short but powerful book that shows us that God makes all things beautiful in His time.\u00a0 It’s also one of the coolest love stories ever written.\u00a0 Today’s passage is\u00a0Ruth\u00a01:1-13.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Ruth<\/strong>\u00a01<\/strong>:<\/strong>1-2\u00a0<\/strong>(NIV)\u00a0<\/strong>
\n1<\/sup>\u00a0In the days when the judges ruled\u00a0there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-2:\u00a0 The book of Judges comes right before the book of\u00a0Ruth\u00a0and describes a dark time in Israel’s history, a period when the nation of Israel was ruled by “judges”.\u00a0 During this time, Israel had already taken over the Promised Land with God’s help.<\/p>\n

Yet Israel would keep falling into idolatry and rebelling against God.\u00a0 As a result\u00a0they would be oppressed by their enemies or experience other difficulties such as famine (Deuteronomy 32:24).\u00a0 When Israel cried out to God for help, God would send a deliverer, or \u201cjudge\u201d, to rescue the people, but after that judge passed away, the Israelites would fall back into sin again.\u00a0 This sad and sinful pattern would keep on repeating itself.<\/p>\n

It was against this backdrop that an Israelite named Elimilek decides to take his wife Naomi and two young sons to the neighbouring country of Moab.\u00a0 They move to Moab in search of a better life.\u00a0 There Elimilek’s sons would grow up and get married, but then tragedy strikes this family in a heart-breaking way.<\/p>\n

Ruth 1:3-13 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons.
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years,
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When she heard in Moab that the\u00a0LORD\u00a0had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there.
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0With 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.
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the\u00a0LORD\u00a0show kindness to you, as you have shown to your dead and to me.
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0May the\u00a0LORD\u00a0grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.” Then she kissed them and they wept aloud
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Return 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–
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0would 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\u00a0LORD’s hand has gone out against me!”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 3-13:\u00a0 Here we see Naomi at the lowest point of her life, having tragically lost both her husband and her only two children (her sons Mahon and Kilion) (v3-5).\u00a0 It’s tough for most of us to imagine just how much pain and grief Naomi must have experienced during this time.\u00a0 You can hardly blame her when she says that her life is “bitter” in the sense of being full of anguish and distress (v13).<\/p>\n

Fortunately\u00a0Naomi’s story doesn’t end in bitterness.\u00a0 God would work out her circumstances not only for her own good, but also for the good of her family, her nation and ultimately for our good too.\u00a0 But before Naomi can get to that exceeding joy, she first must go through excruciating pain.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this? \u00a0\u00a0Sometimes things will get bitter before they get better.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Sometimes there will be great weeping before they can be great rejoicing.\u00a0 Sometimes you need to go through much turmoil before you see much hope.<\/p>\n

So if you’re going through great turmoil today — in your home, your marriage, a relationship you care about, your finances, your health or other circumstances — remember that your turmoil is not the end of your story. \u00a0If you persevere, like Naomi did, and hang on to God, you will see the light at the end of the tunnel, and you will find that God used even the most painful parts of your life to write a greater story than you could ever write for yourself.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0It’s a story that will bless not just you, but your family, your community, and generations of people after you.<\/p>\n

So when times are bitter, hang on, don’t give up, trust God, and you will find that eventually, piece by piece, He makes all things beautiful in His time.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, thank You that whenever I go through turmoil or grief, You promise that that is not the end of my story.\u00a0 Thank You that You use even the most painful parts of my life to write a greater story than I could ever write for myself.\u00a0 Thank You that You make all things beautiful in Your time.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today we begin the book of\u00a0Ruth, a short but powerful book that shows us that God makes all things beautiful in His time.\u00a0 It’s also one of the coolest love stories ever written.\u00a0 Today’s passage is\u00a0Ruth\u00a01:1-13.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

Ruth\u00a01:1-2\u00a0(NIV)\u00a0
\n1\u00a0In the days when the judges ruled\u00a0there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab.
\n2\u00a0\u00a0The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.<\/p>\n

On verses 1-2:\u00a0 The book of Judges comes right before the book of\u00a0Ruth\u00a0and describes a dark time in Israel’s history, a period when the nation of Israel was ruled by “judges”.\u00a0 During this time, Israel had already taken over the Promised Land with God’s help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24870,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24867\/revisions\/24870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}