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Three Choices
Ruth 1:1,2
Whenever we face trials in our lives, we can deal with them in one of three ways:
- We can endure trials. People who choose this option decide to tolerate what is going on, but they are not going to like it, and they will probably grumble about it constantly. Over time, they often become bitter. But trouble is not given to you just to endure.
- We can try to escape trials. When we attempt to escape, we try to leave the place God wants us—and the place where God plans to help us. Whenever we walk away from God, whenever we fail to hear and trust His voice, whenever we do not stay when we should, we risk all kinds of challenges (Lev. 26:18–20).
- We can enlist our trouble. In other words, we can let God use the hard times in our lives to make us better and to help us grow in His way. This choice takes to heart the advice of James 1:2–4: "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."
As we read Elimelech's story, we see that he took the second choice. He did not try to endure the famine, and he did not enlist it as an opportunity for growth; he decided to escape it. So instead of staying where God had settled him and his family, and trusting the Lord to provide food, he relocates to Moab with his wife and sons—and the result is one of the saddest stories in the OT. When Elimelech does what is "right in his own eyes" and moves himself and his family away from the place where God intended to use them, he becomes Exhibit A in the period of the Judges (Judg. 21:25).
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