Verses 19-22
Naomi and Ruth returned to Bethlehem and verse 19 says the whole town was stirred. Everyone was talking about Naomi returning. And since it had been 10 years and those had been hard and difficult years she reflects a woman who has been through hard and difficult years.
The women of the town were asking, “Naomi, is that you?” The idea behind that question is more bluntly, “Naomi, what has happened to you?” She didn’t even seem like the same person. That is what pain and tragedy and affliction can do to us. Tt shapes us not only emotionally, spiritually but also physically.
Naomi responds by saying, “do not call me Naomi.” The word Naomi means pleasant which is the idea of something being enjoyable or satisfying. And the last 10 years of her life had been very unpleasant. It had been unenjoyable. Full of dissatisfaction. This had not been a decade of peace or blessing or comfort.
Don’t call me pleasant she says because there is nothing pleasant about my life.
Instead she says, “call me Mara” which means bitter. I am a woman right now who has experienced the bitterness of life. When you think about me, think about my bitterness. What is interesting about Naomi’s statement is that she connects her bitterness to the Lord. In fact, in her response in verses 20-21 she references the Lord 4 times.
Even in her pain and bitterness, she hasn’t become an atheist or even turn to other gods. She is still living in a worldview in which the Lord of Israel is sovereign over all things. She is still living in a worldview in which God gives and He takes away. He blesses and He disciplines.
And in her references to God it is not just a general references but a personal reference. She used ‘The Lord” twice. “Lord” refers to the name Jehovah meaning the self-existing God or the eternal God, or the one true God. And then she uses the word “The Almighty’ twice – which is El Shaddai meaning The Sovereign One. El Shaddai has also been used to describe God as the “All Sufficient One.” In Him our needs are satisfied. And so she says the One true God, who is sovereign and provides, Has testified against me.
I think that is a significant statement Naomi makes even in her bitterness. She may not understand what God is doing. She may think God is unfair in his treatment toward her. And she may have a wrong understanding of what God is doing. And she may not be willingly to examine her own heart in this situation. But she does recognize this is the hand of God and that God is the Lord Almighty.
When we go through things in life that are painful, God doesn’t mind us wrestling with them. God doesn’t mind us bringing hard questions to him. God doesn’t mind us saying what David says in Psalm 13, “God, have you forgotten about me. Have you abandoned me?”
But what He does desire is that when we have those conversations that we do that in light of who He is. When we wrestle with life and death, joy and pain, may we wrestle with those thing with the One who is the giver of life and death, the One who allows good and hard circumstances because God is using those thing in our life is accomplish His purposes.
The challenge is when pain causes us to run from God, to find answers and hope outside of God. Because then we miss out seeing what God wants to accomplish in and through that pain. When we wrestle with the one who is truth, we will find truth. When we wrestle with the one who is love, we will find love.
It is not always easy to distinguish between the discipline of God or the trials he provides to mature us or simply the evil we will encounter in life because they can all come in the form of suffering and affliction. But in all things we can recognize the sovereignty of God and the never ending work of God who is at work for His Glory and for our good.
Naomi recognizes the work of God (and that is a good thing) but right now she does not see the goodness of God. And as we will see in the rest of this book, this hand of affliction is for the good of Naomi and Ruth and the nation of Israel.