Joy and Peace, Even in the Hard Times

Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her lap and became his nurse. Ruth 4:16

Recently, I found myself recounting the story of the day the DEA showed up in my life, demanding that I surrender my license to prescribe controlled substances. I’d been caught diverting opioids for my own use, and it was those DEA agent’s job to deal with me. It was as bad as it sounds. My life was absolute chaos. I lost my job. My family was on the way out the door. My career was probably finished. Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I got out of bed in the morning. What did I have to live for? I’d destroyed everything I loved, and my life was over. In that loss, it would have been easy to surrender to hopelessness.

Incidentally, I have friends and coworkers who, through no fault of their own, are currently experiencing terrible life trials which are turning their lives upside down. Powerless to escape from this adversity, the hopelessness threatens to overwhelm. I wish that I could wave my magic wand and make it all disappear, but this is beyond my control. So, what do I say in the face of life’s terrible trials?

Naomi, I think, could have answered that question. In today’s passage, the love story of Ruth (Naomi’s daughter-in-law) and Boaz wraps up as they got married and had a son who would become the grandfather of King David and ancestor of Jesus Christ. This happy ending however, is set against the backdrop of great tragedy for Naomi. At the beginning of the story, we’re told how Naomi lost her husband and two sons. In that loss, Naomi must have felt hopeless. The Almighty has brought calamity upon me (Ruth 1:21). Naomi though, even when she’d lost everything, relied on God, clinging to the only thing she had left – her faith. The book of Ruth closes with Naomi holding her grandson on her lap and though the passage doesn’t say it, I see Naomi smiling as she found joy and peace in her faith, despite life’s terrible trials.

Though my suffering was self-inflicted, I had a similar experience. it was only in losing everything that I began to learn to practice faith – finding my joy and peace in something that could not be lost. The Bible teaches that my joy, purpose, and meaning must flow out of my relationship with God, which nothing and no one can take away. So often though, I attempt to find my center in the ephemeral. The problem is nothing – job, home, career, even family – is guaranteed to last forever. If my joy and peace is anchored in those things which are inherently unstable, I will eventually lose my joy and peace. To live is to experience suffering and loss. So, if I desire a life of joy and peace, I cannot rely on circumstances. Rather, my joy and peace must daily come first from my relationship with God, which no one and nothing can take away.