Bitterness and God

Devotion: Ruth 1:19-22

Bitterness is unease with our circumstances left to fester. What results is disdain for other people, for the self and, most importantly, for God. Today that last one often takes the form of denying the existence of God as if one's declaration regarding God actually had an effect on His reality. Even if we do not deny God's existence or power or goodness or love explicitly, we do so practically by neglecting faith and faith's outward expression of worship. This is where the 'spiritual but not religious' crowd meets the 'I love Jesus, but hate the Church' crowd. Neither of these will actually help us deal with the pit of bitterness in our souls. Sure, we can hide behind lofty sounding words or strike back with sharp sarcasm or even numb ourselves with work or sinful pleasures, but in the end God will not be denied for He is the great I AM. So, if you cannot go around God, what is left? I think that is where our passage comes in this week with the continuing struggle of Naomi.

"So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, 'Is this Naomi?' She said to them, 'Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the LORD has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the LORD has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?'
So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest. " -Ruth 1:19-22 ESV

Naomi cannot see beyond her present circumstance. The town of Bethlehem is stirred up because this long lost relative has come home. While the text does not supply the emotion of those in Bethlehem it is hard for me to understand the women's question as anything but joy. They are happy that Naomi has returned to them. If there is one thing bitterness cannot abide it is joy. A surefire test for bitterness is how we interact with the joy of others. Indeed, as Christians we are called to weep with those who weep, but we are equally called to rejoice with those who rejoice. The women of Bethlehem, I wager, are rejoicing that Naomi, long gone and perhaps presumed dead, has finally returned to them. Naomi, lost in her bitterness can only curse their joy and curse God at the same time.
Cursing God is the real danger of bitterness. It is not that the Almighty will be thwarted in His purpose or even in His love and grace. Rather, it is the bitterness that fossilizes the heart and strangles any joy we may feel. Naomi has that kind of bitterness. She wants to be called 'Mara' (meaning bitter) not as a lament for the tragedy she has borne. We may understand her renaming herself if she is merely calling the women of Bethlehem to weep with her. Rather, she has taken her new name as a testimony against the Lord. She blames God for what happened to her. She blames God for her husband and sons dying. She blames God for having to leave her adopted homeland and return to Bethlehem as a beggar who can only hope for redemption. She blames God for her present circumstance. Yet, she cannot take the modernist route of denying God's existence. She knows too well the promises of God and how God has kept His promises. She cannot deny God, so instead she despises God.
In Naomi's despising of God we learn the most important thing about God. Despite our emotional reaction to God, if He has determined to love us, to save us, to redeem us, God will not abandon us. We can rage against the Almighty, we can curse His name, we can even blame God for everything rotten in our lives--not a single one of these things will turn God away from us. Naomi does not have God's point-of-view and neither do any of us. It takes the intervention of God to turn our most horrific circumstances (and Naomi's circumstance is horrific) into anything good. This is God's work and it is marvelous in our eyes. We will follow Mara as God transforms her back into Naomi throughout the next three chapters. Yet let us take away a few things:

1. Bitterness directed outwardly or inwardly is poison to the soul.
2. Denying or cursing God does not change His power or His love toward us.
3. The test of bitterness is if we can rejoice in each other's joy.
4. It takes God to intervene in our lives to save us from our bitterness.

If you are feeling bitter right now, talk to God about it, talk to a friend about it, seek prayer and support from a local church. Bitterness is soul-killing, but God can raise the dead.

News for You:

• Sign up now for our Fall small groups. We are studying "Your Church Experiencing God Together." You can find dates and locations at the Welcome Center at CPC or just call and we will help you out.
• Registration is full for Women's Paint & Pie event on Saturday, September 30 at 6:30 p.m. Thanks to all who signed up! Wow, what an overwhelming turnout!
• We are raising funds to help build the Okanogan Community Homeless Shelter. You can find out more at their website, okshelter.org!
• Are you interested in getting to know CPC better? Try the New Membership Class on October 1st following the Fellowship Hour. Lunch will be provided if you let us know you are coming.
• Our next community outreach event will be our annual Trunk-or-Treat. Decorate the trunk of your rig and help provide a fun, festive and safe experience for parents and kids on October 31. More details to come!

Determined Love

Devotion: Ruth 1:15-18

Pain can lead us down dangerous paths. Pain can take a person who has been getting along just fine in life and turn them to the demon of addiction. Pain can turn a person against friend and family and even God. Pain can lead us away from the life that God desires for us in community and lead us to isolation and self-destruction. That's the kind of pain that Naomi has.

"And she said, 'See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.' But Ruth said, 'Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.' And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. " -Ruth 1:15-18 ESV

Pain can close us off to the desire and ability of others to come along side us in our pain and offer the deep, healing balm of the love of God. Pain can lead to cursing our circumstance (and maybe even God) and the bitterness that follows that feeling of helplessness. Pain hems us in and dims the redemptive imagination even as it turns the heart and the mind from the powerful and fierce love of God. As a pastor, I see this all too often. I have reflected much on pastoral ministry in prayer with God over the last few months. I am tired of the idea that the pastor is to be a visionary leader, a strategic change-agent, a program-pusher or a mission-minded salesman. These concepts sound good, but they fail to actually help people in pain. Each of these identities creates anxiety and pain, and I am convinced that this is not God's will. Surely the Lord can call us to endure suffering for His glory, but He always goes with us through the pain. And in the comfort we receive we are to be a comfort to others. I am weary of the idea that people are to be used for a vision, a mission, a strategy or a program. People bear the image of God, even when distorted by pain. It is the call of the pastor and all who call on the name of Jesus, the innocent sufferer and bearer of our sin and pain on the cross, to meet people in that pain and walk alongside them in the presence of God. We are to practice the determined love of God on display in Ruth in our passage today.
I understand my role as a call to be a Ruth in the lives of the flock that God has placed in my care. I am to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to recognize pain and walk into it alongside the sufferer and not run from it. We have so much pain surrounding us--pain of alienation from God, pain of hopelessness, pain of lovelessness, pain of faithlessness, pain of isolation from true, life-giving community found in Christ's church. We try to fix the pain on our own, utilizing the good gifts of God in an improper way. Yet, in the end, God's covenant promise to be with us and through this promise, our promise to each other to be with each other through thick and thin, is really what we need.
Ruth walks into Naomi's pain. She does so at great personal risk, but she does so under the watchful eye of God. Ruth not only claims Naomi as her kin, but in doing so she claims YHWH as her God. I may be pushing the text too far, but Ruth can claim YHWH because He has already claimed her. Ruth's determined love of Naomi flows out of the Lord's determined love for her. It is this same determined love that Christ Jesus has for you and commands us to give to one another. You do not have to be a pastor to do this. We need only see the pain in those around us and determine, through faith in the Lord, to meet that pain in love in some pretty practical ways. More than anything else, I think that is the mission of the Church, to bring the love of God in Christ Jesus to bear on the suffering, pain and anguish of the world. It will not lead to flashy conversions all of the time (Naomi merely falls silent at Ruth's determination), but it does lead us to the deep love of God over and again and away from the destruction of isolation.

News for You:

• Sign up now for our Fall small groups. We are studying "Your Church Experiencing God Together." You can find dates and locations at the Welcome Center at CPC or just call and we will help you out.
• We are hosting a Women's Paint & Pie event on Saturday, September 30 at 6:30 p.m. Come enjoy an evening of pie, painting and fellowship and find out about the new Women's Ministry Program at CPC. Please RSVP by September 24!
• We are raising funds to help build the Okanogan Community Homeless Shelter. You can find out more at their website, okshelter.org!
• Are you interested in getting to know CPC better? Try the New Membership Class on October 1st following the Fellowship Hour. Lunch will be provided if you let us know you are coming.
• Our next community outreach event will be our annual Trunk-or-Treat. Decorate the trunk of your rig and help provide a fun, festive and safe experience for parents and kids on October 31. More details to come!

Decisions in Crisis

Devotion: Ruth 1:11-14

My wife has often remarked that I do not behave well in crisis. My usually sharp decision-making matrix breaks down and I start doing things that are not only rash, but out-of-character. I think it is the part of me that wants to make everything right and fix what is wrong that takes over and I stop doing proper analysis of the situation and counting the costs. While these are my personal hang-ups in crises, I do not think I am alone. I think that for many decision-making in a time of crisis or turmoil is difficult to do well and often leads to questionable results.
As we zoom in our devotional passage this week, it is worth remembering that we find three women (Naomi, Orpah and Ruth) who all now widowed in a culture where widowhood means becoming destitute. The situation is dire, the choices are desperate, and the decision-making is more emotional than rational.

"But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters; why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters; go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.” Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. " -Ruth 1:11-14 ESV

Naomi has been so devastated by the present crisis that she has no ability to imagine redemption. It is as if she faces the present circumstance and says, "The Lord has cursed me and there is no hope." The only way forward for her daughter-in-laws, so far as she knows, is to bear sons and let them grow up and then marry the two. Naomi knows this a pipe dream and so dismisses the option as quickly as she suggests it. At this point, she succumbs completely to bitterness and let's all hope run out.
Bitterness kills the redemption imagination and the reliance upon faith that God will bring good out of even the most devastating of circumstances. In her grief, Naomi cannot see beyond the current crisis and this, for her, is actually sin. She loses faith in the Lord and even goes so far as to assert that the Lord has acted specifically against her through the death of her husband and her two sons. Far from trusting the Lord to provide redemption and renewal, Naomi lays her crisis at the Lord's feet and asserts her wretchedness as the direct action of the Lord. This is wrong, as the rest of the story will make clear, but at the same time, it is understandable in the moment of crisis to wonder about such things. In light of fires, earthquake and hurricanes in our news recently, we may even be tempted to assert that the Lord has brought judgment in these acts, yet such a view does not come from wisdom. Wisdom would lead us to conclude that crisis and disaster befall us no matter our standing before the Lord, so our part is to be sure we are ready to meet our God should the circumstance lead to our death--and the only way to be ready is to put faith in Christ Jesus, the one who defeated sin, death and Satan, the one who makes all things new, and the one who redeems his own.
Crisis decision-making is never easy. When the decision-making is handed over by Naomi to Ruth and Orpah they will choose different paths. We will look at Ruth's path throughout the rest of this series, but at this point it is Orpah we need to put in view. Orpah chooses to return to her mother's house and, God-willing, take a new husband. While we can contrast Orpah's decision to leave Naomi with Ruth's decision to stay with Naomi and, therefore, pass judgment on Orpah for making the wrong decision, the Scripture makes no such claim or conclusion. Orpah chooses to return home and this is her response to the crisis. She is not necessarily wrong in making that choice anymore than Ruth is not necessarily wrong for NOT making that choice. She responds as best she can with the available information to the crisis at hand. I am uncomfortable with saying that she showed a lack of faith in the Lord, but certainly Ruth's more famous response seems to invite that thought.
Instead, gentle reader, let us take a sympathetic view of Orpah. She has just been told by her beloved mother-in-law to go home to her mother's house. She has been assured that staying will only produce more misery and condemn her to a lifetime of widowhood and the destitution that brings. Faced with the available information, she decides it best to do as Naomi says. This is not sin for Orpah, but rather a woman trying to do the best she can in a very tough spot. No, if there is sin in the passage it is in Naomi's bitterness and her lack of faith that the Lord will make a way where there seems to be no way. We never go wrong when we fall on the mercy of the Lord in faith, even, and perhaps especially, when in crisis.

News for You:

Fair Outreach Report:

We gave out over 800 bottles of water, talked with dozens of people in our community and enjoyed making our Savior's presence known. Thanks to all who helped. Our next big outreach event will be our annual Trunk-or-Treat. Start planning now for serving our community by providing a fun, festive and safe experience for parents and kids on October 31.

Adam's Road Ministry Event, September 14, 7 p.m.

The musical group Adam's Road  will be at CPC soon. This group will be sharing the gospel in both testimony and music and should not be missed. Again, come out and bring some friends. The event is free (though a love offering will be taken) and everyone attending gets a free CD. 

Small Groups to Launch the week of September 24

Our Fall Small Groups will be concentrating on, "Your Church Experiencing God Together," the follow-up to last Fall's "Experiencing God." Sign ups will begin shortly, do not miss out!

Weeping Together

Devotion: Ruth 1:8-10

The Apostle Paul instructed the Romans in 12:15 to, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep." Knowing the difference is important. In times of mourning, it is inappropriate to rejoice. Imagine attending a funeral and someone suggests doing the wave or letting the kids have a go at a pinata. Death is a cause for weeping. It is the consequence of sin and even for the Christian it is a time for sadness at the loss of one we love--even if for the deceased it is entry into Heaven awaiting the great day of resurrection. Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus (John 11:35) and this seems the right thing for the Christian to do with others in the face of death. I have been to one too many "Celebrations of Life," where it was unclear to me that anyone actually died. We try to move past the weeping and mourning so quickly that we do not really stop to deal with the real and devastating consequences of death. It is just these consequences that Naomi, Orpah and Ruth face in our passage today.

"But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, 'Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The LORD grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!' Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. And they said to her, 'No, we will return with you to your people.' " -Ruth 1:8-10 ESV

Without father, son or husband these women are destitute. Naomi's plan to return to her homeland is her last chance at securing her well-being. She asks her daughter-in-laws to return to their mothers because they have no future with her. The death of Elimelech, Mahlon and Chilion has brought real and devastating consequences for all of the women, but Naomi will feel the sting the most acutely of the three. Naomi tries to send off Orpah and Ruth so that they may find a new husband and perhaps the rest and relief that was absent in the present situation.
Naomi wants to bear the burden of death by herself and in some ways we can see this as noble, but in others it is foolish. The trouble with failing to acknowledge and note a death with mourning and weeping is that those who will bear the consequence will have to do so alone. I remember some years back as I met with a grieving widow she stopped me as I was about to leave. The widow thanked me for saying her husband's name since no one else seemed to do so. I have often thought about that as I considered why that may be. The best answer I have is that we are afraid of death and speaking the name of dead person makes it real. We want widows and widowers, orphans and the bereaved to bear their pain and sorrow silently and nobly and, therefore, deliver us from the scary acknowledgment that life is fragile and death is always on the horizon.
Thankfully, both Orpah and Ruth linger with Naomi. She needs them to weep with her and mourn with her. We need others to weep with us in times of death and loss as well. We cannot ignore or hide the bereaved for any reason. We are clearly called in Scripture to come alongside those who weep and offer the comfort of presence, but also the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ who conquered sin, death and Satan once and for all in his own death and resurrection. So weep with those who weep because the reality of death is it is sad. We can remember and give thanks for those who die, but do not confuse mourning and rejoicing, lest you forget that our fervent prayer is that God will wipe the tears from our eyes and turn our mourning into dancing.

News for You:

CPC at the Okanogan County Fair, September 7 – Sept 10

This year CPC will have a booth at the Okanogan County Fair.  This is an opportunity for our church family to be a sign of God’s Love, a source of Joy and a beacon of Hope to those who do not yet know Jesus.  We will have a brief training for volunteers following worship on September 3.

Adam's Road Ministry Event, September 14, 7 p.m.

The musical group Adam's Road  will be at CPC soon. This group will be sharing the gospel in both testimony and music and should not be missed. Again, come out and bring some friends. The event is free (though a love offering will be taken) and everyone attending gets a free CD. 

Small Groups to Launch the week of September 17

Our Fall Small Groups will be concentrating on, "Your Church Experiencing God Together," the follow-up to last Fall's "Experiencing God." Sign ups will begin shortly, do not miss out!

Turning to Home

Devotion: Ruth 1:6-7

There are times when we must make decisions to change. After the tragedy of death visited Naomi for her husband and both of her sons she sits at the place of decision. Her choice is to continue to live in Moab as a widow without family support and with two, presumably, young daughter-in-laws who will now depend on her as the matriarch of their now greatly diminished family.

"Then [Naomi] arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the LORD had visited his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she was with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah." -Ruth 1:6-7 ESV

The Lord had caused the famine in the land, though the reason for doing so is not given. Yet, the mercy of the Lord always bends him back to His people. The famine is lifted and there is bread once more in Bethlehem, the 'house of bread.' When Naomi hears this, she makes the decision to head for home. There she will have the family support she will need to continue to live, though she will be living with the pain of loss.
The turn for home will mean a certain defeat for Naomi. She must abandon her new identity as a refugee in Moab and return to what she once was. Repentance is like this for the Christian--the one who trusts in the saving grace of Jesus Christ already. We wander away from our home with God and become a refugee in the foreign land of the world. Eventually, sin and death batter us around long enough that we make a turn for home. The Parable of the Prodigals contains this same idea (and interesting enough, it is a famine that finally convinces the younger son to return to the father). We abandon our home in the grace of Christ and the call to faithful obedience to God's revealed will and wander away and make our home in the land of sin. We tell ourselves that we are happier, better, smarter in this new home. We tell ourselves that we should have done this a long time ago. Yet, as so often happens, the new home in sin turns on us. Things are actually miserable, worse and silly. And then we wonder if we can go home.
Naomi hears their is bread again at home and this tells her, in God's gracious, providential way, that she can make a change and turn for home. The announcement of the Gospel to the wayward Christian is much the same. Come home and find that God has been waiting for you.

News for You:

CPC at the Okanogan County Fair, September 7 – Sept 10

This year CPC will have a booth at the Okanogan County Fair.  This is an opportunity for our church family to be a sign of God’s Love, a source of Joy and a beacon of Hope to those who do not yet know Jesus.  We will have a brief training for volunteers following worship on September 3.

Adam's Road Ministry Event, September 14, 7 p.m.

The musical group Adam's Road  will be at CPC soon. This group will be sharing the gospel in both testimony and music and should not be missed. Again, come out and bring some friends. The event is free (though a love offering will be taken) and everyone attending gets a free CD. 

Small Groups to Launch the week of September 17

Our Fall Small Groups will be concentrating on, "Your Church Experiencing God Together," the follow-up to last Fall's "Experiencing God." Sign ups will begin shortly, do not miss out!

One People under One King

Devotion: Ruth 1:3-5

In our passage this week the focus shifts to Naomi and her daughter-in-laws. We learn that the family stayed in Moab for quite some time, indeed, long enough for Elimelech and both his sons, Mahlon and Chilion to die.

"But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband." -Ruth 1:3-5 ESV

The time in Moab was at least ten years. The famine in Bethlehem we learn later had been lifted, but we are left to speculate at what point. Surely within that span of ten years, but exactly when is lost to history. What we see, then, is a family who fled to Moab as refugees and decided to make their home there. We should note that the Moabites welcomed these foreigners and the family felt at home enough to take Moabite wives for their sons.
In light of recent events concerning the rearing of the ugly head of white supremacy and anti-immigrant populism, this little passage of Ruth should stand out to us as a different way. The Scripture teaches us that in the end, the hope of Israel was to be a light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 49:6, but also Luke 2:32). Indeed, in the hope of glory we are to see that the old dividing lines that have kept us separate are falling away until we truly are one new nation (see Galatians 3:23-29, but also 1 Peter 2:9-10), a single people under a single King, King Jesus the Redeemer!
So in this little tragic story, we see a little glimpse of this glorious future. Ruth and Orpah join Elimelech's family through marriage. The people of God take in the foreign women even as the foreign people offered refuge to the people of God. Old hatreds and even deep animosities are left aside in favor of living in peace with one another.
As the Church, we are to seek to live at peace with others. We receive into the Church all those who claim King Jesus the Redeemer as their Lord and Savior. This is the only criteria for entry into the Church--race, nationality, language, gender are of no consequence. To be sure, Ruth and Orpah will each display their character and allegiance in the next few verses. At this point in the story, however, they are received as brides of the sons of Elimelech. In the Church we welcome all who come as the bride of Christ Jesus and count them as part of our family. This mean we too may have to set aside old hatreds, prejudices and animosities, but for the sake of the glory of our Lord who will be praised by every tongue and nation it is more than worth the price. The world has enough wickedness, the Church must not add to it.
And so we leave the family in tragedy and mourning. We explore next week just how they each cope with the grief. Now, however, let's take these lessons with us for the week:

1. The Church is made up of all who call on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and this is the only criteria for membership.
2. We are to be a welcoming people, bringing in all who would come close to Jesus to his family.
3. The vision of Scripture is to create a single people under King Jesus. It is only loyalty to our sovereign that marks as belonging and all other ways we separate ourselves from each other must be laid to rest.

News for You:

Men's Shootout, Sunday August 20 1-4 p.m.

The men of the church are invited out for an afternoon at the range (Riverside Sportman's Club). Come for some fellowship and bring a friend.

CPC at the Okanogan County Fair, September 7 – Sept 10

This year CPC will have a booth at the Okanogan County Fair.  This is an opportunity for our church family to be a sign of God’s Love, a source of Joy and a beacon of Hope to those who do not yet know Jesus.  Two volunteers (or a family) are needed for each 4 hour shift.  There will be a signup sheet in the Fellowship Hall after Worship.  Be sure to include your T-shirt size on the signup sheet.  More details to come.

Adam's Road Ministry Event, September 14, 7 p.m.

The musical group Adam's Road  will be at CPC soon. This group will be sharing the gospel in both testimony and music and should not be missed. Again, come out and bring some friends. The event is free (though a love offering will be taken) and everyone attending gets a free CD.

No Bread in the House of Bread

Devotion: Ruth 1:1-2

This week we begin a new series in the book of Ruth. One of two books in the Bible to be named for women, the book of Ruth follows the story of a family and focuses on the life of two women, namely, Naomi and Ruth. This week we are going to begin by meeting Naomi and her family.

"In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there." -Ruth 1:1-2 ESV

Elimelech was from Bethlehem a name that means, 'House of Bread,' in Hebrew. So the story of this family begins with a bitter irony. There is no bread in the house of bread. We are further told that this story takes place during the time of the judges and from data later in the book we can determine that it happened closer to that end of those days (a period of over 200 years). Three points can be drawn from these two pieces of information. First, the famine that hit Elimelech and his family led them to flee to a foreign land (Moab). This move is reminiscent of Jacob and his sons fleeing to Egypt during an earlier famine (see Genesis 43-46). We will learn next week that fleeing to a foreign land can often bring tragedy--but in the case of Ruth we will see throughout the book, it can also bring joy and relief. Moab is a curious choice for the family as they are among the most hated of Israel's enemies at the time (perhaps second to the Philistines), but given Bethlehem's location, it would have been the closest land to flee to for the family.
Second, we need to notice that the famine did not impact a close neighbor of Israel. For whatever reason, the famine only impacted Israel. From the Scriptures we know that Israel was dependent on rain for its agriculture (see Deuteronomy 11:10-17) and a lack of rain (the likely root cause of famine, but locusts are also possible) would signify that Israel had broken faith her God. The family's flight to the foreign land also shows that this particular family found it easier to depend on a foreign nation rather than seek the Lord through repentance. This pattern will be repeated in national Israel under various kings and would eventually lead to the downfall of both northern and southern kingdoms. When in trouble, we go looking for someone to help or perhaps somewhere to escape. The alternative, though difficult, is to continue in the difficult circumstance seeking the Lord's guidance, help and relief. This is not the course of Elimelech's family and tragedy will soon follow.
Third and finally, again like Jacob and his family, Elimelech's family settles down in the foreign land. We do not know for how long, but the text strongly implies that they made a new home in the foreign land rather than a brief stint as refugees who returned to the land God had given them once the famine was over. It is this final piece that puts everything that follows into perspective.
So what do we take away from all this. Again, three points:

1. In times of need, we need to return to the Lord. The Lord is the one who gave the rains and caused the crops to grow and led to the people having bread. If there is not bread in the house of bread, go back to the source. We should not be surprised that some of our difficulties and troubles are caused by sin. When we have a rift in our relationship with God it can lead us into pain and suffering. To be sure, following God can do the same thing. The whole point is that pain, sorrow and suffering need to drive again and again into the arms of our loving Savior. If we flee God, the intent is lost.
2. Be careful of relying on the wrong kind of help. To be sure, there was bread in Moab, but is that the bread Elimelech and his family needed? When we find our own solutions rather than turning to the Lord in prayer for Him to guide us we can find resolution, but it rarely is satisfying for long and can often lead to unintended consequences. Grace can make even those unintended consequences work together for the glory of God and our good, but how much more if we seek the Lord's will first.
3. Pray for refugees around the world. People who are necessarily displaced from their homes and must flee famine, persecution and/or war should have our deep compassion. Elimelech fled famine and for that he is worthy of compassion. The disconnect was settling down in Moab and not returning when the famine was over. Even Jesus' family fled the wrath of Herod for a time, but they returned to Israel when Herod died (see Matthew 2:13-15). We need to support refugees in their time of need, but also support them returning home (making that possible is a good prayer to the Lord) when the time is right.

We will meet up with the family next week.

News for You:

Men's Shootout, Sunday August 20 1-4 p.m.

The men of the church are invited out for an afternoon at the range (Riverside Sportman's Club). Come for some fellowship and bring a friend.

CPC at the Okanogan County Fair, September 7 – Sept 10

This year CPC will have a booth at the Okanogan County Fair.  This is an opportunity for our church family to be a sign of God’s Love, a source of Joy and a beacon of Hope to those who do not yet know Jesus.  Two volunteers (or a family) are needed for each 4 hour shift.  There will be a signup sheet in the Fellowship Hall after Worship Service this morning.  Be sure to include your T-shirt size on the signup sheet.  More details to come.

Adam's Road Ministry Event, September 14, 7 p.m.

The musical group Adam's Road  will be at CPC soon. This group will be sharing the gospel in both testimony and music and should not be missed. Again, come out and bring some friends. The event is free (though a love offering will be taken) and everyone attending gets a free CD.