Naomi's Prayer Blessing

We need to keep in mind that Naomi is returning to her home in Bethlehem Judah, from Moab, where she was living. Her returning has been occasioned by God’s lavish blessing on her people back home, in giving them a most bountiful harvest. Naomi is returning home to a place flowing with God’s rich blessing.

We are with Naomi and her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, as they all set out to leave Moab. Where is Naomi’s mind, as she has set her heart resolutely to leave Moab and return to her people and to her God? Is she not concerned about her daughters-in-law and their future life? Remember, these are perhaps the only living people presently, who are most near and dear to her. In fact, they are her life in Moab. They surely are the people with whom she shares companionship. They are the ones who bring her comfort and joy, the ones with whom she daily communicates. They are the family she has, who help to take good care of her, in her growing years. 

Despite all those personal advantages and the joy she has in these two young women, Naomi wants the best for them. She knows that stuck with her, their lives will not bloom and blossom as they can. It is with this selfless care and concern for them and not herself, Naomi advises them to return to the homes of their respective mothers. Her wish is that God, her God, Israel’s God will deal kindly with them, in the same way they have dealt kindly with her. Then Naomi, a repentant, returning-home child of Father God, lavishly, confidently and truthfully spreads out a blessing upon those young widows. What a blessing of magnanimous proportion! What a prayer blessing for life! 

The LORD grant that you may find rest, each in the house of her husband. Ruth 1: 9a.

Naomi has prayed for rest for the young widows and it is this unlimited bounty and beauty of rest, which both arrest and caress us in this most beautifully warming moment. Keep this information ever present in your mind. Ruth and Orpah are simply Moabite young ladies who were most likely strangers, until, on different occasions, they became the wives of two Ephrathites. It was by marriage that they not only came to know each other, but to leave their mothers and cling to a mother-in-law.

Naomi prays for God to grant rest to both Ruth and Orpah, not in the homes of their mother, but in the house of another husband. What is this rest then? It is a specifically particular, peculiar and productive rest. Indeed, it is the rest that will not be found in one’s own home, but that which is found with a new husband. 

Where are you in this setting? Do you have a place here? As sure as you have life and hope in Jesus, this is for you, for He has come to be Husband to the Church, and you are the Church. You were once bonded to sin, married to sin and sin was your master. Thanks be to Jesus, you died to sin, therefore sin has no legal, lawful right or claim to you. You were all, the Body of Believers, made widows, free to take another husband, Jesus. It is in Jesus that this rest is found. Listen again to it. This rest, specifically particular, peculiar and productive, is not found in your house or any other house, but the house of Jesus, your Husband.