God uses our today to shape our tomorrow
"The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel!"(NIV) Ruth 4:14
Many times, when the road gets rough and slippery, men use their mishaps to convince us to stop moving. But when God becomes our focus, even in the midst of discouragement, we are encouraged.
What we should understand is that, whatever that happens today, God will use it to shape our tomorrow. Naomi had to go through rough patches in Moab only for God to identify a lineage for our Lord Jesus Christ. If Naomi didn’t experience extreme bitterness in the land of Moab, she wouldn’t have decided to return to the land of Judah for Ruth to follow her. If this had not happened, Obed would not have been born by Ruth, for him to give birth to Jesse, for Jesse to give birth to David and finally, for Jesus, our Messiah to emerge from this lineage.
God in his own wisdom understands what He does and man has no hand in the process or the outcome. Naomi tried hard to stop Ruth from following her to the land of Judah because, in her wisdom, she had nothing good to offer Ruth. But our all-knowing God designed that moment for Ruth to speak these words "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. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me." (Ruth 1:16-17). After that Naomi kept quiet.
When Naomi and Ruth got to Bethlehem in the land of Judah, the people were excited and “Can this be Naomi? “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.”- Ruth 1: 19-20. Little (if at all) did she know of God’s plan for her life. Yes as humans as we are, we will definitely complain when the going gets tough. That is alright because complaining means there is a challenge to overcome or a need to be met. But as we complain, we should realize that whatever is happening to us is to ensure that God’s purpose for our lives comes to pass.