{"id":1148,"date":"2021-11-05T10:16:21","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T14:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1148"},"modified":"2021-11-05T10:16:21","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T14:16:21","slug":"hope-is-a-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/05\/hope-is-a-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope is a Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Throughout November we\u2019re taking an in-depth look at Ruth, the little book that helped pave the way for God’s Messiah to come into the world.<\/em>


Ten years earlier, Naomi had left her hometown of Bethlehem and crossed the border into Moab.

She had been a wife and a mother of two sons.  The rest of her life lay ahead of her.

But now, returning with Ruth \u2013 one of her widowed daughters-in-law \u2013 the world seemed like a very different place. 

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem.  When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, \u201cCan this be Naomi?\u201d  \u201cDon\u2019t call me Naomi,\u201d she told them.  \u201cCall me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.  I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.  Why call me Naomi?  The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.\u201d  <\/em>(Ruth 1:19-21)

There\u2019s nothing subtle about Naomi\u2019s anguish. 

If we were reading this in Hebrew, we would hear the women of the town saying, \u201cLook, Beautiful has come back home!\u201d  But Naomi answers, \u201cDon\u2019t call me Beautiful any more.  My new name is Bitter.\u201d 

Notice how personal this is.  \u201cThe Lord has brought me<\/u><\/em> back empty.  The Lord has afflicted me<\/u><\/em>.  The Almighty has brought misfortune upon me<\/u><\/em>.<\/em>\u201d  There\u2019s no doubting the reality of her pain, but Naomi is so self-absorbed at this point \u2013 something that happens to a great many of us when the roof falls in \u2013 that all of her perceptions are blurred. 

She seems blind to the fact that she didn\u2019t actually come back to Bethlehem empty and alone.  Ruth is standing alongside her, a living contradiction to Naomi\u2019s assessment that everything<\/em> has gone wrong.

Who could blame Ruth if at this point she said, \u201cAnd what exactly am I here, a potted plant?\u201d  But Ruth remains silent, allowing Naomi to vent her pain.

Naomi is also blind to God\u2019s motives.  She can\u2019t see God as anything but her enemy.  God is the one who is behind<\/em> all of this.  That\u2019s quite true, of course, from a redemptive perspective.  God is behind every detail of this story \u2013 just as he is behind every detail of your <\/em>story.  But Naomi doesn\u2019t yet see God at work to bring about healing or deliverance.

Chapter one has been a tour de force of human anguish.  But it ends on an interesting note. 

Look at verse 22:  \u201cSo Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.\u201d  It is in the setting of the barley harvest that their eyes will open to what God is doing. 

Ruth and Naomi don\u2019t yet know that.  But God does.  And it is in that space where we don\u2019t-yet-know that God always says, \u201cTrust me.  Choose hope.  Leave room for me to work, and prepare yourself to receive it.\u201d

A number of years ago, author and pastor Eugene Peterson and his wife Jan learned they were going to be grandparents for the first time.  They drove two hours to see their son and daughter-in-law.  Jan was so excited she could hardly contain herself.  But Gene felt surprisingly unemotional. 

As he recalls, \u201cI felt dull, flat, routine.\u201d  As they drove back home he turned to Jan and said, \u201cWhat wrong with me?  Why don\u2019t I feel anything?\u201d  Jan answered, \u201cIt\u2019s because you\u2019ve never been pregnant.\u201d  \u201cWell, that\u2019s just great,\u201d said Gene.  \u201cSo what am I going to do about that?\u201d 

Jan told him to build a cradle. 

And so he did.  He researched the project carefully.  He proceeded slowly.  Peterson writes, \u201cI worked with each piece of the cradle, shaping it, holding it, rubbing it, over and over and over \u2013 and all the time anticipating the baby that would be in that cradle, over and over and over\u2026 By the time the cradle was ready, I was ready, prepared to receive the gift of new life.\u201d

We may not know what comes next in our stories.  We may be clueless as to how exactly God is going to bless us. 

But we can know what he has already done to bring hope into the world.  He has sent Jesus. 

Therefore, with confidence, we can prepare ourselves to receive whatever gifts he is about to give to us. 

No matter what\u2026we can choose hope<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout November we\u2019re taking an in-depth look at Ruth, the little book that helped pave the way for God’s Messiah to come into the world. Ten years earlier, Naomi had left her hometown of Bethlehem and crossed the border into Moab. She had been a wife and a mother of two sons.  The rest of her life lay ahead of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1149,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,353],"class_list":["post-1148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hope","tag-ruth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1150,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1148\/revisions\/1150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}