1.Whenever I want some meat I attend the baptist church,they stick to the scripture and also gives us cues to further reading.
Today we started a study on the book of Ruth.I was attending church after two weeks of missing it because of night and day weekend duties.I had forgotten how beautiful it is.
We concentrated on the 1st chapter.
The first chapter outlines the life of an israellite family of Ebimelech and his wife Ruth and their two sons who leave Bethleham their homeplace and migrate to a pagan land of Moab because there is famine in Bethleham.
While in Moab Ebimelech dies.Their two sons marry girls from the foreign land but soon even the two sons die.So the three widows are left to fend for themselves.Naomi hears news about Bethleham being blessed by the Lord again so decides to go back home
and she finally does with one of the daughter in law who refuses to leave her and comes back to her land.
The learnings on it and the reflections were-
God was interested in the situation of a single man.
The anecdote happens in Bethleham .
Bethleham actually means ,'a house of bread'.
There is famine in the house of bread,it does not tell us how but as a consequence of people of God turning away from Him.
The famine may have been caused by invaders,by internal disease and malaise in the society,failure of crops..but one thing is clear God had turned His face away from that region for a time,as a result of disobedience ,that is how Naomi interprets it.
Ebimelech decides to take his family away to Moab,which is fifty kilometres away beyond the dead sea.
Why did he choose Moab ? Moab was a place which harboured a contempt for God and was a pagan land.Was Ebimelech in God's will or was he suffering from a malady that often troubles God's people of disobedience and discontentment that made him to choose 'death' in certain sense.
Ebimelech had run away from death in the land but it pursued him to Moab.
2.The second charecter we come across here is of Naomi,who in own words ,when she comes back to Bethleham says,'I had gone away full but have come back empty handed.'She lost her husband,two young sons and a daughter-in-law.But beyond the loss and the bitterness or 'mara' as she calls it she has the underlying trust in the Ellshadai.
One often finds that christians find it hard to grieve and we put on a brave face in public for ....As John Ortberg puts it'hiding away in the cave with our pain'-but our omnipotent ,omnipresent God finds us even in that cave and does His work in us.When we lose our loved ones ,there is an empty space and our lives do change forever ,never to be the same again.
Expressing pain and discomfort is legitimate and healthy and necessary.What more legitimacy do we want then the picture of our savior shedding great drops of blood while He prayed ,'if you will Lord let this cup pass from me ,and yet not my will but yours be done' or the Christ Himself crying out on the cross,'My God,My GOd,why have you forsaken me?'-the pain was real,whether physical,mental or spiritual and our Lord when He expresses the pain also stands with us in the dark,difficult and painful areas of our lives reassuring us that he has been there and knows what it is like to be there,and it is allright to feel the pain and express the distress.
In our hardship and grieving we will experience the comfort of Elshaddai.He will be our mountain of shelter and strength.
We concluded the service with the story behind that beautiful hymn,'when peace like a river attendeth my way...when sorrow like sweet billows roll...'
This was a hymn written by Horatio G Spafford.
'Horatio G. Spafford was a successful lawyer and businessman in Chicago with a lovely family — a wife, Anna, and five children. However, they were not strangers to tears and tragedy. Their young son died with pneumonia in 1871, and in that same year, much of their business was lost in the great Chicago fire. Yet, God in His mercy and kindness allowed the business to flourish once more.
On Nov. 21, 1873, the French ocean liner, Ville du Havre was crossing the Atlantic from the U.S. to Europe with 313 passengers on board. Among the passengers were Mrs. Spafford and their four daughters. Although Mr. Spafford had planned to go with his family, he found it necessary to stay in Chicago to help solve an unexpected business problem. He told his wife he would join her and their children in Europe a few days later. His plan was to take another ship.
About four days into the crossing of the Atlantic, the Ville du Harve collided with a powerful, iron-hulled Scottish ship, the Loch Earn. Suddenly, all of those on board were in grave danger. Anna hurriedly brought her four children to the deck. She knelt there with Annie, Margaret Lee, Bessie and Tanetta and prayed that God would spare them if that could be His will, or to make them willing to endure whatever awaited them. Within approximately 12 minutes, the Ville du Harve slipped beneath the dark waters of the Atlantic, carrying with it 226 of the passengers including the four Spafford children.
A sailor, rowing a small boat over the spot where the ship went down, spotted a woman floating on a piece of the wreckage. It was Anna, still alive. He pulled her into the boat and they were picked up by another large vessel which, nine days later, landed them in Cardiff, Wales. From there she wired her husband a message which began, “Saved alone, what shall I do?” Mr. Spafford later framed the telegram and placed it in his office.
Another of the ship’s survivors, Pastor Weiss, later recalled Anna saying, “God gave me four daughters. Now they have been taken from me. Someday I will understand why.”
Mr. Spafford booked passage on the next available ship and left to join his grieving wife. With the ship about four days out, the captain called Spafford to his cabin and told him they were over the place where his children went down.
According to Bertha Spafford Vester, a daughter born after the tragedy, Spafford wrote “It Is Well With My Soul” while on this journey.
When peace like a river attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll,
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Chorus:
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul
Anna gave birth to three more children, one of which died at age four with dreaded pneumonia. In August 1881, the Spaffords moved to Jerusalem. Mr. Spafford died and is buried in that city.
And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, shall keep your hearts, your minds through Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:7.
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