Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am pleased to welcome you to another week of the month of February 2024. My prayer is that God will visit you and your family with times of refreshing wherever you are hurting, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As we see in the bible, in the days that Judges ruled in Israel, there was a severe famine that made people start leaving the land for other places where they believed that they would be able to feed and live well. It was during this period that a man called Elimelech and his wife Naomi left the land with their two sons for Moab. Unfortunately, their relocation to Moab did not work well for them at all. That was because Elimelech and his two sons lost their lives there. Not only that, his sons died without leaving any children behind. So, the family was left with nothing but three poor widows. (Cf. Ruth 1)
Now there may have been others who relocated to Moab or some other places during the same period that did not have the kind of nasty experience that the family of Elimelech had. But one of the lessons of the story is that relocation to another place from our workplace, house, town or country is not always the right solution to famine or a period of hardship. If we change our job or location without divine revelations or guidance, we may end up regretting it.
Therefore, don’t be in a hurry to run out of this country in this time of famine, just because everyone you know is running out of it. That may not be God’s way of preserving you and causing you to prosper. For example, as we are also shown in the bible, there was a time that Isaac wanted to go down to Egypt because of the severe famine where he was. But God told him not to go but to stay where he was. Why? The reason was that even though there was a famine there, His provisions for him to prosper were there as well. All that Isaac needed, then, was for him to see those provisions and begin to utilize them. And when he saw them and began to utilize them, he became so wealthy that everyone around him became jealous of him. (Cf. Gen 26)
What is the point of that? It is that the fact that there is hardship in a place does not mean that God’s provisions for us to prosper are not there. So, before we consider changing our location because of the hardship where we are or because an opportunity to enjoy life better somewhere else shows up, we should first of all pray to God and hear from Him. Otherwise, we may find ourselves ignorantly running away from our place of prosperity to a land of emptiness.
Elimelech and his family left Israel for Moab because they thought the place would be a land of prosperity and rest for them. But they later found it to be a land of emptiness for them. So, even though they went there full, Naomi, who was the only one of them that survived, came back empty. May you not use up all your life, resources and devotion to pursue emptiness, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
In any case, while Naomi was still in Moab, not knowing what to do with her life and the lives of her two daughters-in-law, God visited the nation of Israel. The bible says, “When she heard in Moab that the LORD had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, Naomi and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there.” (Ruth 1:6NIV) Did you see that? God eventually visited His people with help by providing food for them. And the visit was so great that someone like Naomi remembered home and set out to go back there.
So, regardless of how hard things may be for us in the country right now, God is still able to visit us with great help, the kind that will make all our people that have relocated to some other countries to start coming back home. And God will surely visit us with help because some of us are praying without ceasing for Him to do so. My prayer is that you will be where you are supposed to be when His help finally comes and times of refreshing are brought to us. Amen.
Have a great week.
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