When God doesn't give you what you want

M I G H T Y I N S P I R I T

Naomi' s Bittersweet Journey Toward Hope

What do you do when God doesn't give you what you want? We've all been there. It could be you've always dreamed of being married and having kids, but every relationship ends with heartache. Perhaps you start a business or ministry you thought God inspired?and it crashes and burns. Maybe your spouse suddenly, unthinkably, leaves you. Or in the space of a few months, it feels as if everyone you love is dying, left and right.

Whether or not a person in the equation of your disappointment has directly betrayed you, when you've trusted God but feel He's let you down?and hard, at that?you may feel betrayed by the Lord Himself. After all, He's supposed to love you more than anyone else. So why won't He give you the deepest desire of your heart? Doesn't the Bible say He can do anything? Then why didn't He protect your marriage, or your friend from the drunk driver?or whatever you feel He's failed to do?

It's encouraging that the Bible is full of such questions and complaints. Obviously, God is up for hearing them.

Ruth's mother-in-law Naomi, the co-protagonist in the book of Ruth, definitely felt betrayed by God. First, she and her husband Elimelech lost their livelihood to famine and decided they'd have to leave Bethlehem. Then, far from home in Moab, Elimelech died. And just when Naomi had reason to be comforted by the marriage of her two sons, both Mahlon and Kilion died, leaving their wives childless. Naomi was officially alone, and it hurt. In her eyes, God had plucked everything she loved out of her life.

When she finally returned home to Bethlehem, Naomi told her old friends, "Don't call me Naomi ['pleasant']. Instead, call me Mara ['bitter'], for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I went away full, but the LORD has brought me home empty. Why should you call me Naomi when the LORD has caused me to suffer and the Almighty has sent such tragedy?" (Ruth 1:20-21 NLT)

But Naomi joined ranks with other God-fearing, biblical complainers?she was forthright with her feelings rather than hiding behind the 'right' answers.

We mistranslate God's character when we demand quick fixes to our very real pain and tough questions, or expect ourselves to "just get over it." Not that God wants us to wallow in a place of bitterness. But He doesn't want us to walk around it either; there's no shortcut for spiritual growth. God wants us to walk through our valleys of despair or doubt?and to let Him come with us. As the old spiritual says, "There's a Lily in the Valley, bright as the Morning Star"; Jesus is in the valley, and we're not going to know Him better by taking a detour. But we have to expect to find Him there.

UNNOTICED BLESSINGS

Naomi couldn't see the Lord trying to bless her through Ruth, even when her daughter-in-law pled, "Don't ask me to leave you and turn back. I will go wherever you go and live wherever you live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God" (1:16 NLT). Naomi was so hurt that hoping for anything beyond her suffering may have seemed too dangerous. Ironically, by walling up her heart to protect it from further disappointment, she was actually locking herself in with the pain.

Real, lasting healing begins only when we open ourselves to the Healer, even though our wounds ache and sting when exposed. If we put Band-Aids on our hearts instead, when they get ripped off, the scabs come off too, leaving us just as raw. And then the wounds never heal.

The Bible is one big picture of God's intervention. From beginning to end, He can't seem to stop involving Himself with us. Even while we're bitterly accusing Him of failure to act, He is intervening.

God breaks through Naomi's bitterness after just one chapter of her story. He moves Ruth (who is also a grieving widow) to initiate change. Determined to start a new life and give her mother-in-law hope, she begins working as a gleaner in a nearby barley field. As it turns out, Ruth "finds herself" in the field of Elimelech's relative Boaz, who not only notices and welcomes her, but also shows her extraordinary favor.

Naomi's eyes are suddenly opened to God's intervention and the life she has yet to live. She remembers the provision He made long ago for people in their situation: the "kinsman redeemer," a relative who marries a widow and takes care of her late husband's estate and family line. Boaz fits the bill, and wonder of wonders, Ruth has caught his earnest attention. Dr. Larry Crabb paraphrases Naomi's revelation in Ruth 2:20: "The Lord has not discarded me. He's always been there, but now I see His kind heart at work. My pain is still real. I've felt it keenly for ten years. But now… I'm beginning to recognize the shape of a dream that's bigger than every dream I've so far valued."

UNEXPECTED JOY AND FULFILLMENT

The story just keeps getting better? Naomi initiates a meeting between Ruth and Boaz; he rises up on Ruth's behalf to secure a kinsman redeemer (and makes sure he'll be the one); and the two finally marry. The story ends with a scene of little Obed, Ruth's son, sitting on the lap of his glowing and contented grandmother. Everyone praises Yahweh for what He's done in the midst of this family. Then the credits roll, letting us know that Obed became the grandfather of King David, who was, of course, the ancestor of Jesus the Messiah?a beautiful snapshot of a journey of faith in which God never stopped working, turning the most bitter spring into sweet water, saying, "I am the LORD who heals you" (Exodus 15:22-27).

Naomi's story reveals that pain somehow increases our capacity to receive God's love and love Him back.

We've probably all shared her bitterness at some point: I thought You said You wouldn't give me more than I could handle! (1 Corinthians 10:13) Aside from taking that scripture out of context, we often don't consider that our perception of what we can handle is actually pretty limited. In hindsight, no matter how little we understand of those dark times, it's hard to deny that God has actually been "enlarging our territory" by way of the very pain from which we initially recoiled.

The Lord often allows and creatively transforms our pain for His love-driven purposes. He doesn't stop working on our behalf, even when it seems He's ignoring our needs. When He says He'll never leave us, we can believe Him, although circumstances may cause us to feel forgotten or even attacked by Him. This is what it means to "walk by faith and not by sight." (2 Corinthians 5:7) And all through Scripture, we're promised to one day be able to see where we've walked.

God didn't bring Elimelech or Mahlon or Kilion back from the dead. He didn't give Naomi a happy, prosperous life with her husband, sons, and their children as she'd hoped. But He planted new seeds where those three trees had died. God didn't give Naomi a new family?Ruth, Boaz, and Obed?to replace the beloved people she'd lost. Rather, He gave Naomi Himself. He filled the void in her life that no person had ever been able to fill, and He did it through both her loss and His unexpected abundance.

by Erin Gieschen