C.S. Lewis wrote, “To walk out of God\u2019s will is to walk into nowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book of Ruth in the Bible contains the story of Ruth, a Gentile woman who married a Jew, becoming the great grandmother and King David, and, most importantly, helped to perpetuate the line of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
The story begins with Ruth\u2019s future mother-in-law, Naomi, fleeing a famine in Bethlehem and heading to Moab:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man\u2019s name was Elimelek, his wife\u2019s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.\u201d (Ruth 1:1-2)<\/em><\/p>\n This seemingly unimportant section contains an essential truth in keeping with C.S. Lewis\u2019s caution above: No matter how difficult our circumstances, the safest place to be is in the will of God.<\/p>\n Most bible scholars believe the famine was an act of divine judgment for Israel\u2019s disobedience. But instead of waiting for God\u2019s direction and provision, Naomi and family ran to the enemy territory of Moab.<\/p>\n An enemy that:<\/p>\n – Had attacked them on their journey from Egypt to Canaan; The father of the Jewish nation, Abraham himself had made the same mistake in Gen 12:10 when he encountered a famine and fled to Egypt instead of waiting for God\u2019s direction and provision.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the lesson, you ask?<\/p>\n When trouble comes we can approach it in 3 different ways:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0\u00a0 Endure it \u2013 where trials can become our master and we can become bitter *From Wiersbe\u2019s New Testament Commentary<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" C.S. Lewis wrote, “To walk out of God\u2019s will is to walk into nowhere.\u201d The book of Ruth in the Bible contains the story of Ruth, a Gentile woman who married a Jew, becoming the great grandmother and King David, and, most importantly, helped to perpetuate the line of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. The story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-living"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Blog-Path-600x300.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Blog-Path-600x300.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Kent Husted","author_link":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/author\/khusted\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n– Had invaded and ruled over them for 18 years;
\n– God describes in Psalm 60:8 as His wash pot, a picture of a humiliated nation washing the feet of the conquering soldiers.<\/p>\n
\n2.\u00a0 Escape it \u2013 where we may miss the purposes God wants to achieve in our lives
\n3.\u00a0 Or\u2026Enlist \u2013 where the trial becomes our servants and works for us to bring about our good and God\u2019s glory. (Romans 8:28)*<\/p>\n