November 2019 Archives

5 Strategies for Dealing With Depression

November 28, 2019 By Carol Whitaker Leave a Comment

When I first moved to Georgia at the tender age of 21, a newly married bride with not a clue about how to be a wife or an adult for that matter, I slipped into a profound depression that lasted for three years.

I really didn’t realize it at the time, but I had walked into the perfect storm, a whirlwind of stressful life changes: a move to a different state into a new role as wife away from my support system of friends and family, a start as a transfer student in a much bigger university, and a transfer to a new branch of my job. I had no idea why I felt the way I did or how to make myself better. “Depression” sounded like a textbook term that had nothing to do with me. It never occurred to me that I was suffering from depression or what the root causes for that could possibly be.

Everything was new. And, to make the transition that much more difficult to embrace, I began to suffer renewed feelings of loss over a previous relationship that I had never been able to find closure in. I faked my way through lectures in lecture halls, shifts at work — and then fell into bed feeling like I was at the bottom of a cycling torpedo of black despair.

I didn’t think there was any way that I could possibly claw my way out of how I felt. One of the reasons that it went on so long is because I didn’t talk about it with anyone. I lived a double life — presenting a smiling façade to the world and suffering alone with my own angst. It was not until I went forward for prayer one Sunday, and the pastor mentioned that he felt someone needed to forgive someone and say that person’s name, that some things began to click for me. I said the name of the person I needed to forgive; instantly, the black clouds enveloping me parted.

Although I didn’t have all the answers leaving the altar that day, I understood something important about myself: I had been carrying the weight of unforgiveness and the other person’s negative view of me around for years and carried it right into my marriage. I felt so depressed partly because I had so much repressed anger at the individual in the relationship and anger at myself for “failing” in the relationship. Even though I was married, I had never processed through the emotions from the previous relationship; therefore, those emotions reared up at a time when I was feeling insecure, vulnerable, and out of my element.

Christians Get Depressed

Somewhere along the way I got the idea that as a Christian I have to be happy all the time or the world will not want what I have to offer, but what I didn’t realize is that the world does not need a false façade or a fake person. The world needs authentic, flaws and all.

The reality is not that Christians will never get depressed. Christians do get depressed. We need to look no further than the book of Psalms to see a man often in the depths of despair. David got depressed! He expressed great despair when God took his child that he conceived with Bathsheba; when armies advanced and his enemies outnumbered him; when troubles overtook him and his body was weak and sick as a result.

Depression is not something to hide or pretend away. When we are depressed, our mind is processing through a loss of some kind or reacting to a stressful event or situation. The solution is not to pretend that we don’t have a problem but instead look to the root of the depression and determine the source of our negative feelings. Is there a relationship that we need to reconcile? Do we have unresolved anger towards a person, an individual, ourselves, or God? Have we just experienced a loss of some kind such as a death of a loved one, a loss of a position, or the loss of our health? Those circumstances can encourage negative thoughts that leave us feeling depressed. (More here on Forgiving Others: Taking a Relationship Inventory.)

David had the right idea. He poured out his heart to God and penned his very real emotions into poignant psalms. He didn’t put on a brave front to God and pretend like he had everything under control. He got real and admitted his need for God. However, nowhere does it say in Scripture that God was upset at him for having those emotions. God can handle our bad feelings.

Because of my own struggles since that day at the altar, I have come to understand more about how to overcome depression and accepted the fact that Christians do get depressed, but we don’t have to stay depressed. We may not get to choose the circumstances that leave us feeling down or the reactions people have to us that make us feel isolated and unloved, but we can choose the way we handle and react to those times when a blanket of gray envelops our souls.

5 Things We Can Do When We Are Depressed

1. Practice thanksgiving in the moment.

I used to consider myself a realist. I thought that in order to see the world realistically and shield myself from unneeded pain meant anticipating when this pain would rear its ugly head. However, this just made me a paranoid, critical person who wasn’t very fun to be around. Thanksgiving didn’t seem like something that would help me crawl out of the pit of pain I had fallen into.

However, it is no coincidence that so many verses in the Bible stress being grateful in all circumstances. Thanksgiving helps to take the edge off of the pain — even forget it. Ann Voskamp recommends listing gifts daily in her study One Thousand Gifts. She carries around a list and writes down her “gifts” as she goes through her day.

This may not sound like a profound activity, but when we meditate on the negative problems happening in our life, it takes our mind to a dark place. The more time we spend stewing over what is wrong and the people who have wronged us, the more time we spend in the throes of depression.

Habitually listing what we are grateful for and rehearsing that in our mind may feel a little forced and silly at first, but as we continue to engage in intentional gratitude, we will find that our depression lifts much sooner — and we can have peace even in the midst of very stressful circumstances.

2. Prayer.

Prayer sounds like a no-brainer solution that well-meaning people offer you when they don’t know what else to say, but it really does work. Even though it is helpful to talk to others, no one else can help us in our situation like God. We can be honest with him about how much that person’s remark hurt us, or how scared we are about taking a step of faith, or how angry we are at our spouse.

Prayer time is a great emotion neutralizer. We come into it with angry, despairing, devastating emotions and walk out of it with a different perspective, a sense of calm, and a release from all of the bad that has been swirling inside of us. As Philippians 4:6-7 recommends: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

When we are at our lowest, we just don’t feel like praying at all, but when we pray despite not feeling like it, we really see results. In fact, as this verse suggests, God promises to guard our heart against the anger, despair, and bitterness that threaten to overtake us. God’s peace becomes our protector. However, as this verse suggests we need to present our requests with thanksgiving to experience God’s peace in our situation.

3. Know it’s a season.

Depression can sometimes last for a long time — especially if it is following a loss of some kind. There may be quite a bit of time that passes before we begin to feel good again. In her CNN article “Going Public With Depression,” published shortly after Robin Williams’ death, Kat Kinsman reflects on her own journey battling depression at fourteen and how she feels now as an adult:

Now, 25 years later, I’ve lost too much time and too many people to feel any shame about the way my psyche is built. How from time to time, for no good reason, it drops a thick, dark jar over me to block out air and love and light, and keeps me at arm’s length from the people I love most.

The pain and ferocity of the bouts have never eased, but I’ve lived in my body long enough to know that while I’ll never ‘snap out of it,’ at some point the glass will crack and I’ll be free to walk about in the world again. It happens every time, and I have developed a few tricks to remind myself of that as best I can when I’m buried deepest.

While I can’t agree with everything Kinsman says concerning depression (namely, I believe that we can overcome our negative thinking patterns), I like how she acknowledges that we can look to the hope that we may be in a hard season, but it won’t last forever.

Knowing that the depression will pass and that there will be a day when we wake up and no longer feel trapped in a black hole helps us when we don’t feel like talking about it, praying about it, or keeping in touch with the outside world.

4. Keep moving.

In yet another juncture of my life, when I had quit teaching and was feeling isolated and insignificant in my role as stay-at-home mom, I felt like I was in a major slump. Something told me to just keep going. Keep attending church events. Sign up for a mom class. Keep searching for a school for my daughter. Keep showing up at my husband’s basketball games.

Sometimes when we are praying and working through things, and we still feel like we are in the valley, choosing to continue to engage in social avenues helps to lift some of the heaviness. As Joyce Meyer suggests in Approval to Addiction:

When we are hurting, our natural tendency is to nurse our wounds. We may want to isolate ourselves and think about how pitifully we have been treated. I have discovered that when I am hurting, the best thing I can do is keep moving. While I am hurting, I just keep doing what I would be doing if I were not hurting. I go to work, I study, I pray, I go out and preach, I keep my commitments. I keep doing the good things God has given me to do, and I trust Him to take care of the evil things.

5. Focus on others.

As I detail in another post, I was at the doctor’s after a miscarriage for an ultrasound and follow-up visit, and I felt God’s nudge to minister to some of the nurses and patients at the doctor’s office. I have to admit that I was very uncomfortable with the idea. Offended, even. Are you serious, God? Do you really want me to say some things to these people when my own heart is broken?

It turns out that reaching out to others in my own pain and sharing my story had a very healing effect on me. I actually started feeling more sorry for some of the pregnant women in the office then for my own un-pregnant state. I have to attribute this feeling to God because my own feelings did not suggest to me that I should do anything but focus on my own state. God knew by pulling my heartstrings that I would help myself by turning outward and aiding others.

As a side note, we can often swing to drastic extremes where we try so hard to pretend nothing is wrong and only focus on others that we lose ourselves in the process. With keeping our commitments and focusing on others, I definitely am not suggesting doing these things without taking care of ourselves. There definitely needs to be some alone grieving time after painful events or losses; however, sometimes we can isolate ourselves to the point where we hurt ourselves more.

Conclusion:

As I look back on some of the seasons where I thought that my depression would consume me whole, I can reflect quite happily on the fact that I made it through. In time, the feelings lifted, and I was able to enjoy life again. Although I was fortunate to get the healing I needed at the altar as a young bride, there have been other seasons that took some persistence and perseverance to make it through the tough valleys.

Simply knowing that bad things will happen, and we will experience negative emotions but do not have to let these things derail or define us — helps a little when sadness steals its way into our lives.

For a discussion on the first two points of this article and a story of a holiday meltdown, check out the podcast. We will return next week with a discussion of the last three points of this post:

Podcast Notes and Corrections:

Curious about the hymn and hymn writer mentioned in the podcast? Check out the following article on William Cowper about his life: “Depression Fought Hard to Have Him” by John Piper of desiringgod.org. For a recording of the song, click here.

Related Resources:

Ever been in a bad situation and it just gets worse? Join us for our brand new series “Hope When You’re at the end of Your Rope: Lessons From Ruth on Trust, Surrender, and Healing.” In the study, we will look at the story of Ruth where will draw lessons the next few weeks on the hope we have when life gets hard, and we feel abandoned and in need of rescue. With this new series, we will begin a new podcast/post schedule where we post podcasts during the week instead of the weekend. We will continue on with this series after next week when we wrap up talking about depression.

If you haven’t read the articles yet or listened to the podcast segments in the Ruth series, check out Part 1: “Why God’s Way Is Always Best” and Part 2: “Pushing Past Our Breaking Points to Do the Will of God.”

If you are not yet a follower of the blog and want to receive our latest posts, follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Or leave a comment with your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you!

*Adapted from “A Christian Perspective: How to Overcome Depression,” published November 18, 2014. Updated December 1, 2019.

Carol Whitaker

Carol Whitaker is a coach's wife, mom, writer, and singer. She left a career in teaching in 2011 to pursue a different path at God's prompting. While she thought that the path would lead straight to music ministry, God had different plans -- and Carol found herself in a crisis of spirituality and identity. Out of that place, Carol began writing about the lessons God was teaching her in her desert place and how God was teaching her what it meant to be healed from a painful past and find her identity in Him rather than a title, a relationship, a career, or a ministry. These days, Carol spends her time shuttling her little ones back and forth from school, supporting her coach-husband on the sidelines, and writing posts. Carol also continues to love music and hopes to pick up piano playing again. Carol is a self-proclaimed blog junkie and iced-coffee lover. She resides in Georgia with her husband and three children.

Pushing Past Our Breaking Points to Do the Will of God

November 21, 2019 By Carol Whitaker Leave a Comment

“Call her back.”

I felt God’s nudge when I hung up the phone with the call center representative. After making an appointment, I had felt led to ask her if she needed prayer for anything. She gladly consented and shared her needs. I prayed with her on the phone and then hung up. I then heard God’s nudge to call her back.

I put my head in my lap and groaned in exhaustion. This woman hadn’t been the first one I had talked to that day. I had been on and off the phone for two and half hours, and she had been the fifth woman I had talked to. I had no idea I would be on the phone so long when I had called in the morning to make an appointment.

Yet, with each person I talked to I felt God’s nudge to witness, encourage, or pray for the person on the other line. Each time I got off the phone, I felt God’s whisper to keep calling. Therefore, I hadn’t planned to make appointments for my entire family, but I went ahead and scheduled appointments for the rest of my family that I had planned to do on a different day and listened to God’s voice with each new person that came on the line. I had had some breaks in between, but I hadn’t eaten lunch as of yet and needed to get my kids off the bus. Therefore, when I felt His voice once more with the fifth person after a good portion of my day had been taken up already, I felt irritated. I was hungry, cranky, and tired. As an introvert, I found it anxiety-inducing talking to strangers on the phone just to make regular appointments — let alone have spiritual conversations with said strangers.

“Lord, why would you ask me to do this? Am I even hearing from you?” I voiced in disbelief. The verse “Not my will but yours be done” popped in my head, but I dismissed the words. Surely, God’s will for me on that day wasn’t to talk to the majority of the call center. I felt a resistance rising up in my heart. This had been a day in a series of days this week where God had asked more of me than I felt I had to give. While I often had God assignments in the course of my days that stretched me –the assignments that week had been much more relentless and time-consuming to the point that I questioned if I was even hearing from God.

Shortly after my pity-party, I read in the study I am going through how Lysa Terkeurst’s daughter felt led to fast and pray for a family all day long. Her mom — yes, Lysa, the Bible teacher — tried to talk her into only fasting until the end of the day, but she insisted. The all-day part got my attention when I read it. Yes, I knew God really wanted me to call the fifth woman back. So, after some grumbling, I picked up the phone once more the next day and called. I had to leave a message and missed her call. I called back once more and was told she would call me. I explained what I was doing to the woman on the line helping me and must have sounded insane, but perhaps she was the person that needed to hear the story.

Whatever the case, I finally felt a release when I just went ahead and did what God asked — but there are other assignments that week that I am still praying about because God brought me to my breaking point, and I felt that I left some unfinished steps. I wanted to do what He asked, but I didn’t realize that I had drawn up boundaries for Him. I had places that I didn’t want Him to go and lines that I didn’t want Him to cross. I didn’t even know I had those limits, but He showed me exactly where those were.

All of us have breaking points. Certain aggravating circumstances present themselves and we hit a wall and feel that we can go no further.

“I can’t!” we cry to the Lord. Yet, to get to our desired destinations requires that we push beyond our feelings of exhaustion, doubt, or discomfort in the moment.

A Woman Who Perseveres Past Her Breaking Point

In Ruth 1, Ruth and her sister-in-law, Orpah, face an important crossroads. After their father-in-law and husbands die, they set out with their mother-in-law from Moab for Judah. However, after they travel with Naomi some of the distance, Naomi urges them to go back.

The journey has been long and hard up to that point, and it has no promise of getting easier. If they continue with her, they will be traveling to an unknown place and will have to rely on the kindness of others. We pick up the story in Ruth 1:8-17:

Then Naomi said to her daughters-in-law, ‘Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.’

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, ‘We will go back with you to your people.’

But Naomi said, ‘Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters, I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me — even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons — would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters, it is more bitter for me than for you, because the LORD’s hand has turned against me!’

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

‘Look,’ said Naomi, ‘your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.’

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.’

What can we learn from Orpah and Ruth’s different reactions when brought to their breaking points?

1. Getting to our promised land requires that we continually move forward, not back.

The point where Orpah parted from Naomi and Ruth was possibly at the Jordan River. To go forward meant to push into the land promised and given to God’s people, but to turn back at that point meant moving backwards into a land that stood as an obstacle between the Israelites and the Promised Land when the Israelites initially set out to possess the land. Orpah traveled some of the distance with Naomi and Ruth, but then she got to a point where she would not go any further. Her words indicate that she was a caring daughter-in-law, concerned about her mother-in-law and attached to her, but her faith did not sustain her past a certain point.

Therefore, though she cried tears when faced with the prospect of going back, she made no move to stay committed to the course she was on. Therefore, even though she had traveled some of the distance and may have even intended to travel the entire distance, she turned back and returned to her gods. Ruth on the other hand, as we discussed last week, “clung” tenaciously to Naomi and declared, “Don’t urge me to leave you to turn back from you. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God” (v. 16).

All of us have places that will be breaking points for us if we’re not careful. We may traverse a certain distance with God and even do it quite cheerfully, but then turn back when we face unexpected trials or simply lose steam in our walks with Christ. When we’re tempted to turn away from God, we can confess our struggle to Him, ask Him to renew our resolve, and ask Him to help us make it past the point that threatens to break us.

2. Pushing forward means pushing past the opposition.

Not only does Ruth have to persevere in her tough circumstances by travelling from Moab to Judah by foot and deal with all the emotions she must have felt as a widow, she also had to push ahead when opposing voices tell her she doesn’t have to take such a difficult path. When God calls us to a particular course, we will have naysayers that urge us not take the course. These may be people who are not in close relationship with God or these may be godly people who may not know or understand what God is telling us.

Naomi urges Ruth to return to her people so that she can find “rest” once again in the home of new husband (v. 9). Although Naomi is a godly woman, she tries to persuade her daughters-in-law to return to their family and gods so that her daughters-in-law will avoid the suffering and hardship that would most likely be inevitable if they continue on with her.

In this day and time, a woman’s role centered around being a wife and mother; therefore, her daughters-in-law only hope of finding security and provision they needed would be in the home of a husband. Naomi is concerned that if her daughters-in-law travel with her that they will lose all chance of finding husbands as she has no more sons and is too old to bear more. Ruth does a truly noble thing here in that she understands that the only rest she needs is that which she finds in Naomi’s God. So, she maintains her insistence that she go with Naomi and Naomi relents. However, Ruth’s move is bold as she, a widow, has no promise of provision or protection in Judah.

Ruth not only has to firmly hold her own when Naomi attempts to persuade her to go back, she also has to maintain her position when Orpah decides to turn back. Orpah and Ruth were both Moabites. They could have helped and supported each other once in Judah, as they both would have been foreigners. They had developed a close relationship as sisters-in-law, and no doubt Ruth was disheartened and discouraged when Orpah decided she could go no further.

What can we learn from Ruth’s actions here? Godly friends are good, and we should seek out godly counsel. But our decision to follow God will be tested. At times, God will allow us to walk through circumstances where we feel alone and others don’t rush in to give us the support we need or may even draw back from us when we forge ahead with God’s plans. Even in those circumstances, as Ruth does here, we should not be discouraged from going on but keep walking down the path God has for us.

3. Our breaking points may not be far from God’s blessings.

Even though it appeared that Ruth would only find more tragedy in leaving behind promising connections in Moab and going to Judah, she, in fact, by choosing to follow God, walked straight into unimaginable blessing. However, she could not have known what awaited her down the road leading away from Moab. What if she had followed Orpah and turned back at the point when circumstances looked and felt the worse? What is she hadn’t trusted God in her bleak circumstance — and turned back to her gods?

Sometimes our biggest blessings await us on the other side of our pain. While it might appear that nothing but suffering and hardship await us when we walk in God’s way, we see when we fast-forward in the story (Ruth does indeed find a husband and bears a son in the lineage of Jesus!) that God can work in our most difficult situations and turn them not only for our good but His glory. A.A. Thomson says this in The Biblical Illustrator:

How unfit we are to judge of an unfinished providence, and how necessary it is, if we would understand aright the reasons of God’s ways, that we should wait and see the web with its many colors woven out! Three short months, during which those dark providences were suddenly to blossom into prosperity and joy, would give to that sorrowful woman another interpretation of her long exile in Moab. When the night seems the darkest we are often nearest the dawn. Begin to tune thy harp, O weeping saint and weary pilgrim! ‘The night is far spent, the day is at hand.’ Learn to wait. When the great drama of our earth’s history is ended … God will again pronounce all to be ‘very good.’

Conclusion:

All of us will reach places in our spiritual walks that threaten to break us. “I can’t take another minute of this, God,” we may shout. We may want to turn away, escape to worldly distractions and comfort. We can learn from Ruth, though, that a woman who perseveres is a woman who finds blessings on the other side of her pain.

While me may not always know or understand why God allows what He does or why we’re in the situations we’re in, we can trust that all works for good for those who love God and walk in His ways.

When we persevere, we find blessings on the other side of our pain.

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Related Resources:

Ever been in a bad situation and it just gets worse? Join us for our brand new series “Hope When You’re at the end of Your Rope: Lessons From Ruth on Trust, Surrender, and Healing.” In the study, we will look at the story of Ruth where will draw lessons the next few weeks on the hope we have when life gets hard, and we feel abandoned and in need of rescue. With this new series, we will begin a new podcast/post schedule where we post podcasts during the week instead of the weekend. (Correction from last week: Oops! Sorry, we said we would post podcasts at the beginning of the week. We were late this week on posting and will post during the week for the duration of this series.)

Check out last week’s post on Ruth 1, where we discuss how God’s will is always best even when He leads us down paths that don’t look the most advantageous.

If you are not yet a follower of the blog and want to receive our latest posts, follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Or leave a comment with your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you!

*Revised November 22, 2019.

Carol Whitaker

Why God’s Way Is Always Best

November 12, 2019 By Carol Whitaker Leave a Comment

“Two paths diverged in the wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

I’ve always liked this line from Robert Frost’s poem, and I like these words even better as I’ve grown older and experienced the truth that these words represent.

We will often have two paths before us and the best path isn’t always the one that looks to be the best. As humans we’re used to choosing what will be to our advantage, but we’re not always adept at determining how a decision will turn out. God can trace down and see where a path will lead whereas we can only see the inviting entry point. Sometimes the path that God leads us down won’t look at the outset like the most advantageous path for us, but it is if God is leading us.

Ruth: A Woman Who Chooses a Harder Path

In Ruth 1, we see a woman who chooses a path that does not look initially to be the best for her. When hard circumstances hit her family and her husband and brother-in-law dies (after her father-in-law died several years before), her mother-in-law decides to go back to Judah and urges Ruth and her sister-in-law, Orpah, to return back to their families. While both Ruth and Orpah travel with Naomi initially and say they will go with her, only Ruth stays with Naomi. Let’s take a look at the story in Ruth 1:1-18:

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimilek, his wife’s name Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

Now Elimilek, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Kilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband. With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.

Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, ‘Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the LORD grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.’

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, ‘We will go back with you to your people.’

But Naomi said, ‘Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters: I am too old to have another husband … No my daughters. It is more bitter for me than you, because the LORD’s hand has turned against me!’

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

‘Look,’ said Naomi, ‘your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.’

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 you God will be my God. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.’ When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

What can we learn from this passage about choosing the path to follow God even in tough circumstances?

1. God remains sovereign in situations that seem out-of-control.

One detail in the story that we might overlook is that it was “questionable,” as one commentator put it, that Elimilek’s family was in Moab to begin with. God had brought the Israelites to the Promised Land, and though they suffered a famine in Bethlehem, God sustained His people in the midst of the famine.

Elimilek sought to escape from the famine, and although he encountered plenty in the land of Moab, he eventually lost his life. Therefore, though he hoped to find better circumstances in Moab, he was worse off than he would have been in Bethlehem. His move to Moab was a backwards move for his family, rather than forwards. Furthermore, after he died, his sons married foreign wives even though God’s covenant with Israelites specified that they not take foreign wives.

Some scholars suggest that the tragedy that came on Elimilek and his sons may have occurred because they violated God’s law. I like how David Guzik discusses this passage: “It is hard to say that this was the direct hand of God’s judgment against them. It is sometimes difficult to discern why tragic things happen. What is certain is that the change of scenery doesn’t make things better. We sometimes think we can move away from our problems, but find we just bring them with us. No matter where you go, you bring yourself with you — so the same problems can continue in a different place.”

No matter the reason for the deaths of Elimilek and his sons, we can determine that Ruth was in the situation she was in because of the decisions of others and circumstances beyond her control. Often, when we find ourselves at the bottom of confusing, painful circumstances that we didn’t cause or choose — we can wonder what God is doing and why He has allowed what He has. Yet, if we fast forward just a few passages, God was sovereign and already had provision planned for Ruth when she arrived in Judah.

Ruth wasn’t the only recipient of God’s grace and provision. Naomi, too, received God’s provision. We don’t know what role Naomi had to play in her husband and sons’ decisions, but she declares that God’s hand has turned against her (v. 21). She may have said these words merely in recognition of God’s sovereignty or because she felt that God dealt with her family for their wrong choices.

Whatever the case, Naomi, like Ruth, turns to God and He works on her behalf. God works through hard situations — whether caused by the actions of others or our own actions. And we should know that there is hope for us just as there was hope for Ruth and Naomi. We, too, can turn to Him in our struggle, and He can work all things (even our mistakes and missteps) together for our good (Romans 8:28).

2. Even in hard situations that we didn’t choose, we can trust God and follow Him even when it doesn’t make sense.

Because of the circumstances that happen to Ruth’s family, she, Naomi, and Orpah are left at a difficult crossroads. At first, Ruth’s sister-in-law, Orpah, says that she plans to travel with them and go to Bethlehem. But then, she abandons that plan and returns to her family and gods. As a Moabite, she had grown up serving other gods, but in marrying Elimilek’s son, she had been exposed to the one true God. Perhaps she had exhibited allegiance at one point, but then when she considered the hardships ahead, she decided to abandon God for what appeared a more advantageous path. If she returned home, she would surely find a husband again — even if it meant no longer following God.

Ruth, on the other hand, “clung” to Naomi with a rare tenacity and makes this declaration in verses 16 and 17: “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 will by my God.” She chooses the harder path: to go with Naomi meant to leave her homeland, family, and gods and walk towards a life that by all appearances did not look so promising. As a widow, she would be poor and could not expect more beyond hard work and a low status.

Certainly, as we see in the next few chapters, Ruth had to work hard gleaning wheat in a field all day in the hot sun, relying on others’ kindness to get needed sustenance. She could have followed Orpah out the door, but she instead went the harder way of following God when she couldn’t see how such a move would benefit her.

3. We have to commit to the course, having a “whatever it takes” attitude.

Ruth committed to following God and then kept faithfully on that course. Naomi tries to talk her out of going with her, but then stops when she sees that Ruth is “determined” to go with her (v. 18).

We will have those in our lives who attempt to talk us out of certain parts of our calling, but if we are walking in the will of God, we can gently put those arguments to rest and persevere on against the odds to live out our calling. Paul says in Philippians 3:13: “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.” For Paul, answering God’s call meant leaving behind his prestigious titles and standing in the community and embracing prison, shipwrecks, hunger, opposition, and execution.

Similarly, Ruth here will not abandon God and go back to her former life, but instead presses on. When they arrive in Bethlehem, she demonstrates her tenacity further by doing what she could to support herself and her mother-in-law. Were there moments when she felt her hope slip away when she viewed married women in the community happily established and enjoying the protection and care of a husband? Did she remember longingly at times all that was familiar in Moab? Did she at times wonder if the new God she was following actually was going to come through for her? I am quite sure she did. We don’t know her thought processes, but we can imagine that the hard path she had chosen, although the right one, must have been burdensome.

Walking in God’s Will Brings Blessings

God’s ways aren’t our ways. Often what looks to be the right way in our own eyes will only lead to bondage and suffering. I love what Lysa Terkeurst says, “The safest place to be is in the center of God’s will.” Proverbs 3:5, 6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” We will encounter obstacles when walking in His will, but they will be those that God will help us overcome and see us through.

In my own life, years ago, I felt God asking me to step away from music for a season and instead pursue a ministry training program and start the blog. I fought against what God told me because a better opportunity appeared to open in front of me. It was right there for the taking. But God gave me a firm no, and it broke my heart. At first, I rejected what I thought I was hearing. How can this be, God? I have a calling to be used in music. So, I persisted in going the direction I wanted to go, but I didn’t get far. His “no” to me was relentless, and I eventually felt such a lack of peace I stepped away from the opportunity a few days later. As it turns out, sometime later we ended up moving. That particular collaboration with certain individuals would not have worked out.

If God is a good God and knows what is best for us, He will only lead us in the best way. But it won’t always feel like it. When tempted to go our own way, which might initially look more advantageous, we can look at the story of Ruth and see how she was blessed when she went the harder way — at the center of God’s will.

Related Resources:

Ever been in a bad situation and it just gets worse? Join us for our brand new series “Hope When You’re at the end of Your Rope: Lessons From Ruth on Trust, Surrender, and Healing.” In the study, we will look at the story of Ruth where will draw lessons the next few weeks on the hope we have when life gets hard, and we feel abandoned and in need of rescue. With this new series, we will begin a new podcast post schedule where we post podcasts at the beginning of the week instead of the weekend.

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