https://odb.org/MY/2022/11/04/he-redeems-our-pain
The story of Naomi in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament is a story of how the LORD God redeemed an Israelite woman living in a foreign land (they reloacted to Moab when severe famine hit Judea) after her husband died and her two sons who married Moabite women also died. From a wife to a widow to a childless mother because her sons died, Naomi was in dire straits.
She had two Moabite daughters in law, Orpah and Ruth. She thus returned to Bethlehem in Judah and although Orpah remained in Moab, Ruth chose to follow Naomi back to Judah to live the rest of her life as a foreigner in a foreign land, the land of her husband and mother in law. But the LORD saw their plight and provided Ruth with a kinsman-redeemer, a close relative to take over the responsibility of a husband, in Boaz and Boaz married her. Ruth who was childless bore a son named Obed for Boaz. Obed became the father of Jesse, the father of David whose line came the baby boy named Jesus through the Virgin Mary.
A shattered dream and yet God transformed it by providing a kinsman-redeemer whose line bore the saviour of the world, of mankind. How many of us have lived a life of shattered dreams? Dreams that were buried and died because of circumstances we were in. For example, the quota system in the public universities and families who just made ends meet. In my generation, we had to excel in the public examinations to qualify for the choice courses in the public universities if we wanted to do engineering, medicine, dentistry, law or even economics. There was only one route and it was STPM and we all strived to score 5 As or at least 3As 2Bs. If we didn’t do as well, then we need to take whatever course was offered as our families then couldn’t afford us a foreign university education, not even a private twinning programme. Of course it was prior to the days of the government education loans called PTPTN and in those days we also didn’t have so many local private foreign-affiliated universities and generally families were also less well off than now.
There could have been other dreams that we had missed like an opportunity to serve as a missionary for Christ due to the need to earn a living. Or to pursue our own career choices due to our unique circumstances.
Whatever was our situation, Naomi is the example of God redeeming us of our shattered lives, our broken dreams. It’s a real life story in the Old Testament preserved in perpetuity as a reminder and testament to God’s people of His grace and mercy, of His redemptive power to change and transform lives despite our adverse circumstances or unfavourable “make do” situations. The LORD can and will help us break free and provide us a new life, a lifeline into a promised land like He brought out 600,000 Israelites and their families out of Egypt into Canaan in fulfilment of His Covenant with Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish nation. Naomi is a wondrous testimony of God’s goodness, grace and mercy, of His everlasting love and faithfulness. He is indeed a God that we can cling on to and put our entire faith and trust on. He is our LORD Redeemer, the redeemer of our faith and soul!
Ronnie's Thoughts 