WHEN ALL HOPE IS LOST,

What do you do when you feel like all hope is lost? The first chapter of Ruth gives us a story of the loss experienced by both Naomi and her daughters-in-law. Naomi had lost her husband and two sons. To make matters worse, her sons died before they could have any kids with their wives. It looked like it was over for Naomi. I mean, she had nothing to show for her marriage and she was not getting any younger. Have you hit rock bottom?

Are you at a place where you feel like you have nothing to show for your efforts? Maybe its financial problems that you have experienced that keep getting worse and it almost seems like you do not have a way out. Or maybe you have been tarmacking for years and yet you have the qualifications, so it almost seems like it was all for nothing.

• You are not alone when you feel like all hope is lost.
• The application of Naomi and Ruth’s story in Chapter 1 helps us know what to do when we feel like all hope is lost.
• God will challenge our limiting beliefs to reveal His truth
• Although you are limited, you serve a limitless God
• Even when you feel alone, you are not
• Key Takeaways.

Naomi must have felt that. She was getting older so imagine what was on her mind. Either way, this is not a situation anyone would wish to be in. But one thing we see here is that although Naomi felt alone, she, in fact, was not alone. Because although she did not have any kids of her own, she had a daughter-in-law who was willing to be with her through it all. She even left her homeland, her family, and what was familiar to her. She resolved to follow Naomi and be there for her. In actuality, she had the option to leave. after all her husband was no more and technically nothing was binding her to Naomi. Yet she stayed. How kind of her to do that?

Once upon a time—it was back in the days when judges led Israel—there was a famine in the land. A man from Bethlehem in Judah left home to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The man’s name was Elimelech; his wife’s name was Naomi; his sons were named Mahlon and Kilion—all Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They all went to the country of Moab and settled there. Elimelech died and Naomi was left, she and her two sons. The sons took Moabite wives; the name of the first was Orpah, the second Ruth. They lived there in Moab for the next ten years. But then the two brothers, Mahlon and Kilion, died. Now the woman was left without either her young men or her husband.

One day she got herself together, she and her two daughters-in-law, to leave the country of Moab and set out for home; she had heard that God had been pleased to visit his people and give them food. And so she started out from the place she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law with her, on the road back to the land of Judah. After a short while on the road, Naomi told her two daughters-in-law, “Go back. Go home and live with your mothers. And may God treat you as graciously as you treated your deceased husbands and me. May God give each of you a new home and a new husband!” She kissed them and they cried openly. They said, “No, we’re going on with you to your people.”

But Naomi was firm: “Go back, my dear daughters. Why would you come with me? Do you suppose I still have sons in my womb who can become your future husbands? Go back, dear daughters—on your way, please! I’m too old to get a husband. Why, even if I said, ‘There’s still hope!’ and this very night got a man and had sons, can you imagine being satisfied to wait until they were grown? Would you wait that long to get married again?

No, dear daughters; this is a bitter pill for me to swallow—more bitter for me than for you. God has dealt me a hard blow.” Again they cried openly. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye; but Ruth embraced her and held on. Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law is going back home to live with her own people and gods; go with her.” But Ruth said, “Don’t force me to leave you; don’t make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I’ll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; where you die, I’ll die, and that’s where I’ll be buried, so help me God—not even death itself is going to come between us!”

When Naomi saw that Ruth had her heart set on going with her, she gave in. And so the two of them traveled on together to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem the whole town was soon buzzing: “Is this really our Naomi? And after all this time!” But she said, “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 but the clothes on my back. Why would you call me Naomi? God certainly doesn’t. The Strong One ruined me.” And so Naomi was back, and Ruth the foreigner with her, back from the country of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.
Ruth 1:1‭-‬22 MSG

You are not alone when you feel like all hope is lost.

Anyway, I want to talk to a person who can relate to Naomi’s situation. You don’t have to be experiencing exactly what she did, but you could experience some loss of a kind that forces you to start over, unsure of the path to take. Maybe everything around you looks dark and your back is against the wall. You could be going through an uncertain path where you don’t know what to do or even where to start. One thing you have to realize is that you are not alone.

God sees all that you are going through and He feels your pain. Sometimes the path God has for us requires Him to rid us of things that are great because He has greater for us. God will waste no season we go through. And yes, it could look like it’s over for you, but it is not.

God wants to do something new and grand in your life. Just like how Naomi’s story ended with her redemption and restoration, your story will have the same ending too. God is restoration and He will always leave you better than He found you. This means that if you haven’t experienced restoration or seen the goodness of God, it is on the way and your story is not over yet. Hold on because you will experience the goodness of the Lord in this land of the living.

The application of Naomi and Ruth’s story in Chapter 1 helps us know what to do when we feel like all hope is lost.

God will challenge our limiting beliefs to reveal His truth

Naomi thought that family meant blood only. But how wrong she was. God had to get that limiting belief off of her. In fact, towards the end of the book, there is a place where the woman sang a song praising Ruth, saying that she was better than 10 sons. What limiting beliefs do you have that have prevented you from moving forward on the path God has for you? Maybe you thought things were supposed to go a certain way and those doors are closed. It could even look like no matter how much you try, you never seem to get any headway. God has very many ways to get you to the destination He has for you. God could be redirecting you. Check out the blog post on the 4 unique signs of God’s redirection if you want to learn more.

We serve a limitless God. He is Sovereign and thus He has everything figured out. So if you feel like there is no way out in whatever you are going through, I want you to remember that God has a way carved out for you. His plan for your life will still come to pass. But you have to be open-minded because His ways will be unexpected and most of the time not what you want. He will challenge your beliefs to tear them down and get you to get Him out of the box you have him in.

God will always challenge you to a higher level of glory, even when you don’t expect it. And sometimes His ways will contradict logic because He is not limited. In what ways are you expecting God to come through for you in your situation? Today I want to encourage you to reframe your thinking and allow God to do things the way He wants to.

Could it be that He wants to take you down a path that no one has traveled before? You see the norm was that the male children were the source of pride and security. But in this case, God challenged Naomi’s belief by giving her a lineage through her daughter-in-law. Can you imagine that? God went a step further and showed her that she could still receive recompense through her daughter-in-law although she was not blood. He will do the same for you too.

Although you are limited, you serve a limitless God

God is not a human being, nothing catches Him by surprise and if He allows you to go through something He knows the end of it because He has it all figured out. So today I want to encourage you to rest in the fact that even when you are confused and overwhelmed, God is not. And when you feel like you cannot do it anymore remember that He is with you and you can hold His hand and trust in Him.

God had assigned Ruth to redeem her mother-in-law, but it first required Naomi to let Ruth in. She had to willingly allow Ruth to help her and she had to let go of her view of family. Naomi thought that family meant blood and God had to show her that sometimes people we are not related to are who God sends to be of help to us. There are seasons we go through that require help from people we do not know or we don’t expect. Are you willing to let God use people you never expected to get you to the plan He has for you? God will do it. He requires you to trust Him and follow His ways even when they make little sense.

Even when you feel alone, you are not

Once Naomi lost her sons and husband, she thought she was alone. It was even evident because she tried to convince both Ruth and Orpah to go back to their people. Obviously, Orpah caved and went back, but Ruth was so adamant and eventually, Naomi gave up trying to get rid of her. She realized Ruth was here to stay. Have you been trying to push people away from who God has assigned to help you? There are seasons in life we go through that require help from people we would never expect.

God can take you through a path where your own family will not know how to help you. Sometimes He will even separate you from them. It does not have to be through death. Sometimes it can be that they do not understand what is going on in your life, and because of that, they isolate themselves from you. Whatever the case, God will never leave you all alone. He will always have someone assigned to help you.

And in the event you have no one, The Precious Holy Spirit is close, and He sticks closer than a brother. If you allow the Holy Spirit in, He will take you through this confusing journey and teach you everything you need to know to emerge victorious.

God’s ways are mysterious. Do you feel you are going through some sort of separation? Is God leading you down a path that no one in your bloodline has traveled before? Maybe God is asking you to pioneer in something and you don’t have the blueprint because no one else has done it before. And maybe you feel silly following God’s ways because it makes little sense. Today, I want to encourage you to keep going. It might not make sense now, but I promise you it will in the end.

Imagine how silly it must have been for Abraham to leave what was familiar for the unfamiliar. Can you imagine blindly following God when He asks you to leave your home country and trusting He will? First, Abraham did not even know about God before that encounter, yet he followed anyway. It was through Abraham’s obedience that he got to experience His promise and now we even know him as the father of many nations.

We need to understand that the Holy Spirit is our helper. Jesus sent Him to be a helper, teacher, comforter, friend to all who believe in Jesus. Thus, beloved, let this help you realize that although you feel alone, you are not. God even says that He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not push Him aside. Allow Him to minister to you.

Key Takeaways.

• God will use circumstances and situations in life to expose the limiting beliefs in your life so that He can get your mindset aligned with His.
• God will never leave you alone. He will always assign people to help you when you are going through difficult seasons
• Sometimes God can have you go through a season alone because He wants the Holy Spirit to be the one guiding you through a particular season. This could be because of what He wants to teach you no one else can.