March 26 - Ruth 1-4: Shattered Dreams

I've done a few studies on the book of Ruth and there's so much that God is communicating to us through this story.  Much that I'm still trying to get my head and heart around.  It's difficult condensing it into one post. So, please forgive the length of what I've written today.  This book reveals so much about us and about God and we read it all in one day!

Although the title of the book is Ruth, I actually want to focus on Naomi.  She is the Israelite, the one who suffered so much loss.  And, she is the one that I most identify with in this book.  Here are some highlights from her story:

the woman (Naomi) was left without either her young men or her husband (1:5) 

this is a bitter pill for me to swallow - more bitter for me than for you.  God has dealt me a hard blow (1:13) 

Don't call me Naomi; call me Bitter.  The Strong One has dealt me a bitter blow. I left here full of life, and God has brought me back with nothing...The Strong One ruined me. (1:20-21) 

God hasn't quite walked out on us after all!  He still loves us, in bad times as well as good! (2:20)

The town women said to Naomi, "Blessed be God! He didn't leave you without family to carry on your life. May this baby grow up to be famous in Israel! He'll make you young again!  He'll take care of you in old age...Naomi took the baby and held him in her arms, cuddling him, cooing over him, waiting on him hand and foot. (4:14-16)

Let me share with you a summary of Naomi's life from Crabb's book, Shattered Dreams:

"Naomi, with a good husband and two fine sons, was full of hope when together they left Bethlehem.  The famine there had prompted a move to Moab. Naomi assumed - it was less a dream and more an assumption - that a short stay in Moab would go well, and then, when the rains came, she would return to Bethlehem with her husband, with her two sons, perhaps with a couple of daughters-in-law...

Naomi's husband, Elimelch, passed away shortly after they reached Moab. One dream shattered. But then her two sons met nice girls and married.

Perhaps she thought, as we all do that if the other shoe did not drop, she would be able to get on. If enough blessings come along to enjoy, perhaps we can endure the pain. God knows we couldn't handle one more trial.  And He gave His word we would never be asked to suffer more than we could endure.

Then that becomes our dream - that sufficient blessing would come our way to get us through.

Then the other shoe dropped. Both her sons died...The Lord could have kept them alive; that much we know. But He didn't...

The end of the book...presents Naomi as a content older woman, still a widow, still the mother of two unresurrected sons, but now a woman resting joyfully in the fulfillment of a different dream.  That's how the story ends.

But Naomi was a grandmother alone. No husband, no sons, a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law and a grandson...The Lord did nothing to preserve the dreams of Naomi once thought essential to her happiness.  He did nothing to provide her with the meaningful good time of growing old with a devoted husband, of watching her sons love their wives and mother well, of proudly observing them dotingly father her grandchildren..."  Shattered Dreams, Larry Crabb

What are the necessary lessons "if we are to develop into people with peace and power and unspeakable joy no matter what our circumstances may be, if we are to become the community of the joyful broken who reveal by our lives that the gospel is true."

1. Shattered dreams are necessary for spiritual growth.
2. Shattered dreams produce excruciating pain, sometimes so extreme that we fear we cannot survive. ..Something wonderful survives everything terrible, and it surfaces most clearly when we hurt.
3. Some dreams important to us will shatter, and the realization that God could have fulled that dream pushes us into a terrible battle with Him.
4. Only an experience of deep pain develops our capacity for recognizing and enjoying true life.
5. Not many Christians drink deeply from the well of living water. As a result, our worship, our community, and our witness are weak.
6. No matter what happens in life, a wonderful dream is available, always, that if pursued will generate an unfamiliar, radically new internal experience.  That experience, strange at first, will eventually be recognized as joy. [Shattered Dreams, Crabb]

Just like Naomi, my name could have easily been changed to Bitter.  In fact, I'm sure there were friends around me who would have loved me to move on from my whining about God and my circumstances.  I have faced shattered dreams, beginning at an early age - the death of my younger sister from cancer; the adoption of a younger brother, later discovered to have learning disabilities, mental illness, and now imprisoned; moving to a foreign country from a small town during high school (read:  big fish, small pond to small fish, big pond); giving up a successful career and money for my husband's career and then to raise children; miscarriage; being maligned and falsely accused in church leadership.

We all have shattered dreams.  They are God's terrible and loving hand in our lives to reverse our values, to remove the obstacles to holiness, to real joy, to loving God and others.  If you feel comfortable, share your shattered dreams.

In the midst of our shattering, will we have "bare naked hope" like Naomi?