Have you been there?

Sometimes we look at Bible characters and we judge them as making the wrong decision based upon what we believe we would have done in the same situation or based upon some assumption we have made regarding their situation that the Bible never really tells us.  I'm thinking particularly about Naomi right now.

Naomi went to Moab with her husband and sons; her sons married Moabite women while they were there.  The three men subsequently died.  Naomi is left alone with two daughters-in-law.  She is broken and sad.

Now we can assume that she was part of the decision making process in going down to Moab; the Bible never tells us that and there is a good chance that in that era she had no say in the matter.  Her husband and sons made the decision; the woman followed.   It is as much a possibility that she knew they shouldn't go but the decision was made.  Yet, here we are, centuries later, telling her she shouldn't have gone.  Let me say that until you have been in her position, you cannot say that she did wrong in going.  It may be that she submitted to the decision as she was supposed to and the end was in God's hands.

Then, her husband and sons die.  Her heart is broken and she's in a strange land with no family.  She urges her daughters-in-law to stay with their people.  We are quick to get after her for that; have we bothered to think that she knows how lonely it is to live in a land full of people that are not your own?  Have we regarded that she is going back to Israel not knowing how she is going to eat or where she is going to sleep?  If she isn't going to be able to take care of herself, how will she care for another?  

We then get after Orpah for going home.  Why?  Perhaps she understands the depths of Naomi's loneliness and knows that the same will be her lot.  

Ruth left her home.  We do not know what kind of home Ruth came from; we do not know how much better her life may have been with Naomi.  Whatever was behind the scenes, we do know that Naomi had something in her that caused Ruth to choose her over her own people.  Can we then, in all honesty, call Naomi's faith into question?  

Naomi gets home and asks that people call her Mara for her life has been very hard.  We say her attitude is wrong and that she should be more joyful.  If you have never been under intense and drawn out heartache, you have no idea how that heartache changes you. It sobers you. It makes you more introspective.  The pain is real and it's there.  You don't get over it because it changes your thought processes.  The name change is merely a record of these changes that Naomi will never forget.  

I contend that Naomi was not as unspiritual as we like to make her out to be.  Ruth found enough in her to follow her to a land of people that had been taught to hate her.  Naomi was doing something well.