Ruth 1:21 I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty.
Emptiness is heavier than fullness as it is weighed down with suffering, scorn and shame. The burden of emptiness, loss and death loaded on Naomi made her sulky, gloomy and grouchy. She left Bethlehem full but had returned empty with an additional burden, the widowed Moabite daughter-in-law. She tried her best to offload the burden of the Moabitess but Ruth refused to leave her. Ruth 1:18 When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her. Saddling their empty pots and empty lives they returned back to Jerusalem. Naomi had to be emptied to realise that her life was out of alignment to God’s will.
The collusion of emptiness is accompanied with shameful and painful burdens. The burden of emptiness is not to stripe away our joy and rip us apart but to reposition us to the plan and purpose of God. Emptiness in our career, relationships or finances is not to permit suffering but to illuminate our envision with Godly vision. Naomi must have stressed all the way back from Moan to Bethlehem about the Moabitess. She would have worried about the acceptance of Ruth and about finding a home for the outcast heathen. However, it was the burden that accompanied her that became the conduit of her blessing.
God will use the burden as the catalyst to release the blessing. Three steps to turn our burden into a blessing from the life of the Ruth and Naomi:
1. Redirect: It was the pain of emptiness that redirected and readdressed Naomi’s life. The wheels of her vehicle was redirected and realigned to the purpose and will of God by the emptiness that she suffered. Emptiness was not to cause suffering but to reposition Naomi to her providence. The emptiness that we suffer in life is not because God has forgotten us but because God is mindful of us and is redirecting us back to our destiny direction.
2. Separate: Separation from the ways of the world is alignment with the Lord. Metaphorically, ‘the unclean animals lists’ contains animal without split hoofs and those that do not chew the cud. Split hoofs symbolizes separation and chewing the cud signifies meditation. Leviticus 11:4 ‘There are some that only chew the cud or only have a divided hoof, but you must not eat them’. Ruth comes from a country and religion that practices human sacrifice, incest and perversion. It was the burden of emptiness that separated them from the world of profanity. Emptiness does not mean punishment but separation from practices that blocks fullness.
3. Mediate: When the burden of emptiness aligns us back to God’s goodness, He will stand as our Kinsmen Redeemer and mitigate and mediate our case. God will defend us, He will speak for us and He will restore us with fruitfulness and fullness. Psalms 68:5 A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows. Naomi not only found a home for Ruth but also recovered all that she lost. When Naomi wandered outside the boundaries of the safety of God’s will, the enemy was able to stripe her empty, but the moment she decided to come back into the fold, God mediated and mitigated her emptiness into fullness.
The weight of emptiness is to drag us back in alignment to the purpose and plan of God in our lives. God can turn the emptiness in our lives into purposeful fullness in no time.
Isaiah 10:27a In that day their burden will be lifted from your shoulders, their yoke from your neck.
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