Ruth 1:6 – When she heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of His people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. Even though there was a famine in Bethlehem, the house of bread, that was not the end of its fate. The famine was a direct reprimand from God for the wayward life of the people of God when they all did as seem fit in their eyes. People like Elimelech and Naomi even fled the land of God to a cursed gentile country for survival, just like their father Abraham who went to Egypt. But the emancipation from God’s land only brought them more tears and depravity. At such times the ungodly people around would say that God had forgotten His people and the land He had given them. But once the people of God learned their lessons, God remembered the remnant and His covenant with Abraham and sent a time of abundance to His people. Such is our God who will not forsake His children forever. He has special ways to teach us great lessons, often through pestilence, poverty, war, captivity, crop failure and the like. These are never to wipe us out of the land of the living. When we learn the lessons that God intends us to learn, He will bring back a time of normalcy in our lives. He will not forget us forever nor will He forsake us completely. He is mindful of us and knows that we are but just and worms. So He shows compassion to us and comes back to meet our needs on a daily basis. But it is equally important that we also live a life of faithfulness to the Lord and His Word.
Dear reader, have you ever felt that God has forsaken and forgotten you because of the seemingly repeated adversities that strike you? But these adversities are often a way by which God is speaking to us and asking us to straighten out our lives. Any thing that God allows in our lives is a way by which God speaks to us. We need to humble our hearts and give ears to the messages that He so loudly speaks. All events that happen around us have a message to us. Some times the events are due to the attack of the enemy which ought to make us sharpen the armor of God that He has given us and use it according to His instructions to fight and become victorious. At other times, we go through the experiences of Ai when failures in our lives make us fumble and mumble. At such times, adversities point us towards our failures so that we can become right with God. Through all that happens to us, we should listen to God and obey unconditionally. When these pestilences blow on us or other believers, we must also realize that after these winds stop, there will be a time when we will enjoy a time of peace and rest. But this rest is available to us today in spite of the winds and storms that blow on us because we are already seated in the heavenly places. We can today be comforted along with the Naomi’s and the Ruth’s among us that God will not forsake us forever and that even when all around write us off, there will be time when God will once again open the windows of Heaven to shower His providence, peace and protection on us in a special way. Yes, Bethlehem will once again be filled with bread and God’s people will once again enjoy a time of spiritual abundance as they confess their failures to Him and wait for Him to act. Perhaps that day will begin in your life today for you to continue to enjoy the favor of the Lord.
Psalms 136:23 – Give thanks to the Lord who remembered us in our low estate. Thought for TodayGod will never write off His children but will show grace and loving kindness towards us when we repent and go back to Him.
