Emmanuel Baptist Church

We all go through rough patches, but how do we through faith break through? How do we find a break in the clouds, and then live by faith? This message helps us see the beauty of the gospel at the time of breakthroughs.

For one woman, Naomi, homecoming wasn’t appealing. She wasn’t walking with her iTunes on repeat singing with Simon and Garfunkel, “Homeward Bound, I wish I was homeward bound.” Though she wasn’t looking forward to it, she knew it was necessary. Because in going back home to Bethlehem, she is on the slow journey back to God. And many times for us, the pain in our lives makes the journey back to God very slow and sometimes uncomfortable. But, in our little vignette today, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus teaches us something about coming back home to the Lord. That in our pain and in our struggles, there are strides that we can make in order to make the journey home a little less rocky.

In this second message from the book of Ruth, Pastor Mike presents a juxtaposition of how to deal with suffering. On the one hand, you have Naomi who has lost so much: first her husband, then her two sons. And in that pain, she flees to isolation and bitterness and, in turn, is blind to any goodness that is being given to her. On the other hand, you have Ruth who also has lost a husband and has never experienced the joy of motherhood. But in her pain, she doesn’t bail, become bitter, or isolate herself. Rather, she chooses to hunker down in love, even when the person she is loving on is unlovable. And through this little historical vignette, we should not only be able to self-diagnose how we process suffering, but we should also learn how to love well and be loved in return.

The first five verses of Ruth describe a series of life-defining moments for one woman named Naomi. Moments that, though were largely out of her control, were still birthed out of bad decisions. And her story forces us to ask ourselves the hard question: are we going to follow God and his path from here on out, even though the road might be long, painful, and incredibly difficult, or are we going to continue to chart out our own path and live apart from God’s will and ways? And her story helps those of us who may be walking along a broken path right now to realize that they don’t walk alone. There is one who has chosen to walk the same broken path with them to lead them to the road to redemption. One who wants to take their broken story and redeem it in order to point to his goodness and glory.