GIVE UP, GIVE IN, OR GIVE ALL

Ruth 1:16 “But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God”

It is hard to see that God is working in our lives sometimes. In fact it seems sometimes as if God is not there at all. How could God allow bad things to happen to good people? How is it that evil people seem to prosper? The devil is a master at focusing us on the negative and causes us to even doubt that God cares; but I want to assure you that God provides and cares for us even when we don’t know it. See, often times God is growing us and teaching us through difficult circumstances. What difficult situation is God using in your life to grow you? Have you ever felt like God has abandoned you?

The book of Ruth takes place during the days of the judges. These were dark days for the Nation of Israel. Everyone did their own thing. Everyone decided what was right and what was wrong. The key women in this story (Orpah, Ruth, and Naomi) faced a serious problem. In this era of time, women without husbands, (especially young widows) did not have much hope. In those days, it was very important that women were married and had children. If they were widows or could not have children they were considered to be cursed by God. To make matters worse for Orpah and Ruth, tradition would have it that if your husband died you were to marry their nearest of kin. Usually the dead husband’s brother would take his brother’s wife to be his wife; but Naomi had no more sons.

At a time when it seemed that they were all cursed by God and He was no where around, each of these three women had to make a decision. There comes certain times in life when although we would like to procrastinate on making a decision, that we must make that decision now. Many times the results of our decisions follow us for the rest of our lives and we will find that the decisions made by these three women had huge affects upon their lives.

What is very interesting about these three different decisions made by Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth is that these same three decisions are the same options that we have to choose from when we are faced with a decision today. We can give up, give in, or give all. Naomi had resolved herself to return to Bethlehem and wait to die. If you read the entire story, you will see that Naomi adopted a very negative attitude. So much that her friends called her “Mara” which means bitter. She had given up. One the other hand, Orpah probably knew that staying with Naomi was the right thing to do. But she didn’t put up a fight. She gave in to Naomi’s insistence and chose a path of least resistance. She gave in. It is easy to give up, it is just as easy to give in, but it is difficult to give it your all. Ruth would not allow Naomi to change her mind because she knew that she was not to abandon her mother-in-law even if it meant that she ended up being single the rest of her life. As Ruth traveled with Naomi, she had no thoughts of finding a husband or how this could benefit her. She was simply concerned for Naomi. Talk about commitment. Not only was Ruth remaining committed and faithful to Naomi, but she was also remaining faithful to Jehovah God. Ruth was not trading gods or giving up on Jehovah just because life had seemed to deal her a bad hand. She gave all.

When difficult times come, we have the same three options. We can give up, give in, or give all. Be encouraged today, like Ruth, to give it all to God. He will bring you through any difficult situation. Be determined to see your destiny play out in the manner in which God has already written.