WELCOME to WEEK 4 of MATRIARCHS!
Study God’s Word with us online or use them in your small group or Sunday School class!
Each lesson includes:
- Teaching video every Monday (15-20 minutes)
- Short lesson provided as the content of the post
- In-depth downloadable PDF to deepen your study
- Worksheets that take you even deeper
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NAOMI
Below is the video lesson guide. Please click on the IN-DEPTH STUDY (LEADERS’ GUIDE) PDF link which takes you to the next level and helps you gain a more extensive and life-changing understanding of God’s Word. There is also a WORKSHEET FOR SMALL GROUP & DIGGING DEEPER and the YouTube video link to study and hear details of Naomi’s story. It is a story that many women can relate to.)
We meet Naomi for the first time in Ruth 1:2 and we find that Naomi’s story moves swiftly in the text. Within the first chapter we see her life transition from one decade to the next with a whole lot of living and dying in between.
Ruth 1:1-2
“Now it came to pass, in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land. And a certain man of Bethlehem, Judah, went to dwell in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech, the name of his wife was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion—Ephrathites of Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to the country of Moab and remained there.”
Surrounded by family and friends and all things familiar, life in Bethlehem was comfortable… it was home.
But when the famine came along, it brought with it the need to make some tough choices. They could stay, work hard, and hope for the best… or they could head out in search of a better life.
Elimelech chose to move on in search of a better life – with high hopes and big dreams.
The family gets to Moab and during the her decade long stay, her husband died, her two sons married Moabite women and then both of her sons also died.
- They journey to Moab to save their lives, but they ended up losing them.
- They left to make things easier, but things couldn’t have been harder.
- They went on a journey that was supposed to fill them up but it only left them empty.
- They went on a journey full of hope and her experience left her hopeless.
I want to pause for a moment because Naomi’s journey has a lot to teach us about our own.
- How many times have we left the familiar in hopes of something more, something better, something different… and then when we got there, we discovered it wasn’t what we imagined it would be?
- How many of us have made a move that we thought would make life easier, but we quickly found out there was nothing easy about it.
- How many of us have sought something we hoped would fill us up but it only left us empty in the end?
You see, what we don’t see from the text (Ruth 1:1-2) is any indication that Elimelech asked God what His and his family should do during the famine.
** Sometimes we venture out into what we think is a good idea, with high hopes and big dreams only to find out that nothing turns out like we dreamed it would.
You see, it’s okay for you and I to have high hopes and big dreams, but if those high hopes and big dreams didn’t initiate from the heart of God, they will never be what you thought they would.
NAOMI’S JOURNEY TEACHES US…
1. WHEN WE HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE OR A DESIRE TO DO SOMETHING, WE NEED TO BE SURE IT WAS GOD’S IDEA FIRST.
Ladies, not every door is ours to walk through and not every need is ours to fulfill.
Perhaps Elimelech saw the open door to Moab and thought that it was his door to walk through… his way out.
When the door swings wide open… it may look like God is opening that door for you… it may look like the answer to your prayers… but it may not be your door to walk through.
It’s easy to see someone else’s open door, assume it’s yours and then run through that thing before getting with God to see if it’s an answer to your prayers or someone else’s.
The flip side is the fact that sometimes God calls us to walk through a door that is anything but easy.
Then… when we get there and things get tough, we question the call and wonder where God is.
In Mark 6, Jesus had His disciples get into a boat and head across the sea where He knew they would run smack dab into a storm. It wasn’t something that surprised Him or something He had to respond to, He called them into a Divinely decreed storm that was designed to test their faith as well as their character.
You see, I don’t want to send the wrong message because we don’t know whether or not Elimelech sought God’s guidance or not. But I don’t want share a common misconception circulating in our modern-day Christian culture.
We do our sister’s a disservice when we tell them that if they do what God calls them to do that the door will swing wide open and the road will be easy.
- Saying “yes” to God’s call on our lives doesn’t insulate us from life.
- Walking through a door that isn’t ours to walk through will never end like we hoped that it would
2. DEDICATION IS SOMETIMES DEMONSTRATED BEST WHEN THE ONE WE ARE DEDICATED TO IS AT THEIR WORST.
After Naomi’s son’s died, she heard that Bethlehem had become the land of plenty again and she decided to go back. After all, there was nothing left in Moab for her.
She told her daughter-in-laws to stay, find a husband and live happily ever after.
They both committed to go with her, but Naomi insisted that they stay in Moab. Oprah kissed her goodbye but the Bible says that Ruth CLUNG to her.
Sometimes we say we will do something we really don’t want to do… but when we are given an opportunity to bail, we say, “See ya!” and we’re out.
That’s what Orpah did.
But in Ruth 1:16-17 we read, ““16 Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God.17 Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me.””
Let’s face it, Naomi was in a hard place… Feeling pretty hopeless and helpless. And the Bible tells us in Verse 13 that she believed God’s hand was against her.
Have you ever known someone who felt like that?
Have you ever been someone who felt like that?
You see, it’s easier for us to walk with those who keep step with us but it’s hard to remain dedicated when their hearts are recognizably hard and they are hard to be around.
Ruth clung to Naomi even when she didn’t feel like she was worth holding on to.
You can imagine how hard and how awkward that 10 day journey was. And…if only she was clinging for the hard 10 day journey from Moab to Bethlehem, we might say, “Yeah! I could hang with Naomi for 10 day too!” but Ruth committed to see Naomi through this thing until the day she died.
We need to be careful not to make our friendships about how good we feel when we are with our friends, and make it more about the commitment we have to them even when they are hard to be around.
Because we are all going to have seasons when we feel like we might never smile again and when we do, we need someone who is dedicated to us like Ruth was to Naomi to hold us up when we feel like we can’t take another step or breathe another breath.
DEDICATION IS SOMETIMES DEMONSTRATED BEST WHEN THE ONE WE ARE DEDICATED TO IS AT THEIR WORST.
3. YOUR SEASON DOESN’T DEFINE YOUR EXISTENCE.
In Ruth 1:20-21 we read,
“20 But she said to them, “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?”
When Naomi and Ruth entered Bethlehem, they were were embraced by family and friends who were excited to see them.
And the women said, “Is this Naomi?”
Funny how the way people say things tell us what they’re thinking, but we don’t have the luxury of hearing the voices of the women in Bethlehem that day.
Naomi means pleasant but her experience in Moab left her anything but pleasant and sometimes we wear what we go through on our faces and the world can tell that something has changed.
We all go thru different seasons. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us that there is a time for everything, but it goes on to say that God makes everything beautiful in His time.
The very last sentence in Ruth 1 ends with these words, “Now they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.”
The Barley Harvest took place about 2 weeks before the wheat harvest. It occurred in April and it was known as the Month of Flowers.
Naomi left when there was a famine in the land and everything was dry and barren. When she returned, the land was flourishing with flowers and vibrant with life, and the only thing barren and dry was Naomi’s heart.
When Naomi looked in the mirror, all she saw was bitter, yet her friends still recognized her as Naomi.
It’s easy to wear what we go through- it’s hard to mask the pain–AND we tend to begin defining ourselves by our experience rather than by our identity.
It’s something I speak about often because it’s easy to talk about who we are in Christ, but not so easy to flesh it out when life is hard.
When you’re in a painful place or a difficult season, it’s okay to go to that hard place, but it’s not okay to stay there… it’s not okay to define yourself by it.
The Barley Harvest meant that life was springing up all around Naomi, but she was in such a place of pain that it didn’t matter. She was no longer Naomi the pleasant one, she said… just call me Mara… bitter.
If you are in a hard place right now or if you’ve recently gone through something that has rocked your world, take some time and go through the grieving process, deal with the pain… it’s real and no one needs to minimize it.
But understand this life we live is full of seasons. Right now, you may be in living through a famine and your life may feel dry and barren, but don’t let your season define you because your Barley Harvest is coming.
Naomi’s journey speaks so loudly to our own.
- WHEN WE HAVE A DECISION TO MAKE OR A DESIRE TO DO SOMETHING, WE NEED TO BE SURE IT WAS GOD’S IDEA FIRST.
- DEDICATION IS SOMETIMES DEMONSTRATED BEST WHEN THE ONE WE ARE DEDICATED TO IS AT THEIR WORST.
- YOUR SEASON DOESN’T DEFINE YOUR EXISTENCE.
LOVE walking through the Word with you ladies!
Don’t forget to download your FREE PDF IN-DEPTH STUDY (IN-DEPTH STUDY (LEADERS’ GUIDE) PDF to download it) and you can CLICK HERE to download your FREE PDF WORKSHEET… and dive deeper and discover more about this Matriarch who was the mother of nations and a mother in whom we can see so much of ourselves.
If this lesson has spoken to your heart… if God has used it, please be sure to leave a comment and please share on your social media outlets using the hashtag #MATRIARCHS
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- What New Thing Are You Ready to See God Do in Your Life in 2017? - December 26, 2016
- Heaviness and Newness - December 23, 2016
