- Bread is Back to Bethlehem
6. THEN she arose with her daughters-in-law that she might return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited His people by giving them BREAD. 7. Therefore she WENT OUT… (Ruth 1:6-7, New King James Version).
Only after all the men in the family had strangely died, in ten short years, did the surviving mother come to her senses. Only “then” did she summon enough sense and “she arose,” and she “went out.” Especially, “she had heard” that bread had returned to the House of Bread. She seemed to have been a disciple of bread – going wherever there was bread (it didn’t matter where), and departing wherever and whenever bread ceased (it didn’t matter how or where). That is the tragedy of followers of bread (John 6:25-26, 66-68). Who knows, it might even have been her domestic pestilence, her relentless naggings about bread, that had forced the family to Moab. Now, she has lost an entire family, with not a bread to show for it, survived only by nagging regrets! Hear her:
20… “Do not call me Naomi;call me Mara,for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21. I went out full, and the Lord has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the Lord has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?” (Ruth 1:20-21, NKJV).
She cried, bitterly blaming the woes of her hasty choices on a good God. Repeatedly she charged the Lord for her losses. She would not concede that her present was merely the harvest of her past preferences.
Moab’s Bread is never free. Naomi had to flee back to her home before she became the next prize on the accursed but alluringly bread-camouflaged altars of Moab. She got back to the same land she had fled for famine. She met a harvest in which, sadly, she had no portion. She had not been part of the famine and the farming. She had to scheme for charities to survive the harvest. The ‘religious’ backbenchers that she might have mockingly ‘left behind’ ten years ago had not been consumed by the fleeting famine. She had fled a famine of bread in Bethlehem-Judah only to encounter famine of a costlier kind than she had ever known.
The season shall pass, and bread shall surely return to Bethlehem-Judah, then prodigals shall be back, but some may find no place in the coming harvest who had heedlessly fled for bread in strange ways to strange lands. But O, may the God of Naomi be merciful, that they might still bring forth David who carry his royal seed in their restored wombs that once were astray. Amen.
- Open Thou Mine Eyes
That you can see does not suggest that you see clearly (Mark 8:22-25). Jesus asked a man if he saw. The man affirmed that he did, but admitted quickly that men were mere trees as far as his vision at the time was concerned. He needed a second touch of the Healer’s hand to see more “clearly.” David was no blind man when he prayed, “Open thou mine eyes…” (Psalm 119:18). No matter that you see, you can still see more “clearly” – at least with an inner eye.
- The Vision of Lot
Now to the story of Mr Lot, the ancestral father of abominated Moab. Lot was a promising young man who had lost his father early, and whose kind uncle, Mr Abram (who became Abraham), against divine instructions, had taken him along on the epic journey out of ancestral darkness. God had instructed Abram to separate FROM his father’s house, but probably out of filial sentiments, Abram separated WITH a part of that “father’s house,” taking Lot along. Lot’s late father had been Abram’s brother. When the time came for both sojourners to part ways, the young Lot got greedily guided by the sight.
10 And Lot LIFTED HIS EYES AND SAW all the plain of Jordan, that it was WELL WATERED everywhere (BEFORE the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) LIKE THE GARDEN of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar. 11. THEN LOT CHOSE for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other. 12. … and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. 13. But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord (Genesis 13:10-13, NKJV).
The elder Abram discreetly gave the younger Lot the right of first choice, which he foolishly seized upon. Sodom looked attractive, even though the people there were “exceedingly wicked and sinful.” That didn’t matter. What mattered was that the land looked like “the Garden of the Lord,” like the lost paradise of Eden. Then the fires of God were still far away.
From The Preacher’s diary,
September 12, 2022.
