Bitter Life

IT HAS BEEN FAR MORE BITTER FOR ME THAN FOR YOU, BECAUSE THE HAND OF THE LORD HAS TURNED AGAINST ME. Ruth 1.13.

Have you ever felt miserable? Has life been difficult and especially hard on you? I wouldn’t be surprised if so! Life isn’t fair all the time to all the people! 'The situations of life could make or break you’ they say. It is not true!

The more you watch people, whether Christians or not, the more you begin to understand that ‘what makes or breaks you is not what happens to you but your attitude to what happens to you!’ This is not just a philosophy. It is a matter for your sheer existence and survival in this world where you cannot control the events of your life. So let us learn how to respond positively to the difficult circumstances in life and become overcomers through faith!

Naomi was a miserable character in the Bible! Famine drove her to a foreign land. There her husband died. She had two sons. Both married girls from that land. But soon the young men died one after the other. The three poor widows were left to fend for themselves. Many years passed by. Now news comes that Naomi’s land has prospered. She decides to go back, leaving the two girls behind. But Ruth stuck to Naomi and her ‘harsh’ God!

Naomi told her daughters-in-law: “It has been far more bitter for me ..because the hand of the LORD has turned against me" (My bitterness is much worse.. because the LORD has sent me so much trouble)! She told the people in her land once she was back, "the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me. ..the LORD has dealt harshly with me, and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?"(vs 20,21).Some of you may be feeling the same way! Hold on!

The truth is that the time Naomi began experiencing ‘the calamites’ that the Lord sent her, starting with the death of her husband, was the very time the ‘Sunshine of God’ had just begun to turn on her! That was the very first step towards going back to her land of promise and becoming the ‘great, great grandmother’ of the Lord Jesus Christ. But poor Naomi had no way of knowing it. Neither had she a faith strong enough to trust in God’s dealings though rough and devastating!

Dear believer, how blinding the present situations can be to you? How misleading your thoughts about them? How short-sighted can you be? The tragedy, pain, the suffering of the hour when intolerable, you not only complain but sometimes question and even 'curse' God! It is typical of Job’s wife who said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!" But the attitude of the man of faith, Job, was different! Afflicted with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, scraping himself with a piece of broken pottery and sitting among the ashes, he replied “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" (Job 2.7-10). Dear friend, 'That’s the kind of faith that overcomes!' That's the faith that sustains you and brings you out of darkness into the promises and blessings of God.

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, help me to be assured like the apostle Paul and say, 'I know that God causes all things to work together for good to me who loves God, to me who is called according to His purpose. If God is for me, who is against me? (Rom 8.28,31).