Often times we ache in the heart to leave a love one behind, even to go a short distance. It strange but family is the dearest thing to a person. Yet not all people are lucky to have good family around them. Not all have good in laws either. There was a famine in the land of Israel when Naomi came to Moab with her husband and two sons, And all of Naomi men died, leaving her two daughter in laws from the land of Moab Naomi had lived there with her family about ten years. Time had passed and the famine in Israel was gone and word was God had given Israel bread. She rose and packed up her belongings and went walking toward Israel with her daughter in laws followed. She was living Moab in peace, She had nothing to offer them and could bare no children. Ruth and Orpah were still young and could have children. Today the idea of thinking one is worthy of anything if one can have a child is not correct.Today woman are not longer thought has just tools of reproduction. Yet in times past it gave one more opportunity to get a good husband. One that would provide and take care of a woman and even provide things she needed to make a good home. Woman sold or traded items they made, but work in the time of judges was based on survival and not technological world as we have today. Jobs were not the nine to five in general, they were tending to crops, or animanls. Few had sits of royalty. Your well being was based on your ability. In truth your well being is still based on your ability but not in the since of finding hope as in the world of yesteryear. It was scary world for woman without protection of a man. Ruth hoped her people would have compassion on her.

Naomi when she got so far down the road and told her daughters she had no hope of providing husbands for them and so they needed to return to their homeland and their family and their gods. The daugher in law Orpah returned and did as Naomi requested, but Ruth was persistent in going with Naomi, tell her she would care for her, and Naomi God would be her God. Naomi let Ruth go with her. All Naomi hope of a future was gone when we she left Moab. She knew not what it be like when she reached home, nor was there peace in heart about the situation. When she arrived people were surprised to see her, asking her is it really you Naomi. Naomi told them to change her name to Mara because God had testified against her and God had afflicted her in the land of the Moabites. Her heart was scarred by the loss of her immediate family.

Peace can not come with the scaring and affliction of God. Did Naomi blame her situation on God, perhaps, or was she just speaking for the time period of what seemed more of a curse from God as if God had caused her hardship because He took her husband and two sons. Right at the moment she could not see the hope that God was going to give her. Nor could she see the family that was already before her, in providing hope through a young woman who cared enough to help her in her travel and in tending to any need she might have. Ruth would be the one going in search of daily food and would pick barley left behind that would make a supply of daily bread and also barley could be stored for long winter. Yet God had even greater plans because Naomi had no son, but she did have male kin folk that took notice of Ruth devotion to her mother in law. A man of her mother in laws family would marry her and Naomi would be a grandmother to Ruth children. God took from Naomi but he blessed her. Sometimes God takes from us, but he not going leave us in the pit of hopelessness, his desire is to give us hope and peace. Sometimes the war we are having with God is because of not being able to understand why God allows our situation. Does God understand our emotion, I think he does, but he wants to do so much for us, and so we must not give up our hope in the Lord.

God's greatest hope came through His Son at a time, when the devil had thought he had won. Thought he could control God's people. Jewish people were under the rule of Roman government and only had faith under the rule of a foreign ruler, they did not live during that time by Jewish laws in the way they did under their own countries leadership. Did the Jews ever give up hope, no they did not, and in 1948 their land became theirs again with their own laws. However for the christian world they look not for a land of promise but the promise of Christ return and the hope of glory. Our peace came with the fulfilling of the prophesy of the Jewish people, of the hope God was giving to all mankind including the Gentile nation. Naomi and Ruth is a good example of how both Jew and Gentile worship the same God. As Christian today we believe in God's promise hope(Jesus) but also worship the God of Israel in the Bible. God plan is to seen a redeemer for all people. Both Jew and Gentile in Bible days came to Jesus. God sent someone like himself so we could understand how to live.Ruth understood that Moab God was not the God of Israel. Knew that they were a people with one God. She was willing to give up everything to serve both her mother in law and her people's gods to serve the living God. The God of eternal hope. She did not see Naomi life as one of loss, but one of hope. She seen her mother in law in need of help through the storm, she was facing. She was protecting Naomi, yet all Naomi could see was God's affliction. Sometimes that all we see is the trouble that God is able to change and He does not immediately. God took time in sending his Son the promised one, and when he did he began to gather his people so they could believe. Some believed at the time of disciples, but Jews were scattered all over, and heard not the promise had come. A gentile would be the great grandmother of King David. Two lineages with the hope of promise seed coming through two nations, yet both believers.

May our affliction of the waiting for the Lord's return be one seen with a road of blessings and not just curses. Let understand the Lord will comfort us in the storm. That God will enable his people in difficult times. Because of our own difficult times may we see how it helps others in our life that see our hope is still steadfast in the Lord.

Dear Heavenly keep your peace always between us, and your comfort in times that you allow our affliction our life to be a light to others round us, when they see how you bless us. In Jesus precious name, Amen.

Continual Scripture Study for Devotion: Zechariah 8:8-16 KJV
8 And I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness.
9 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the foundation of the house of the LORD of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built.
10 For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast; neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction: for I set all men every one against his neighbour.
11 But now I will not be unto the residue of this people as in the former days, saith the LORD of hosts.
12 For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.
13 And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, O house of Judah, and house of Israel; so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing: fear not, but let your hands be strong.
14 For thus saith the LORD of hosts; As I thought to punish you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath, saith the LORD of hosts, and I repented not:
15 So again have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah: fear ye not.
16 These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates: