DEAL WITH IT!

Nelson Ignite

Contents

Introduction: You Cannot Conquer What You Will Not Confront...............................xi1. Ruth "A person with my background just can't succeed.".................................32. Leah "If I could just find Prince Charming to love me ...".............................293. Rahab "What do you mean, I have to change my life?"....................................574. Dorcas "Everybody wants a bigger piece of me.".........................................755. Gomer "You just don't know how deeply I've been hurt.".................................1036. Hannah "I can't stand that woman!".....................................................1297. Mary Magdalene "My name is mud, and it always will be."................................1498. The Shunammite Woman "Freaky Freddie isn't coming through for me.".....................1679. The Daughters of Zelophehad "I have a hunch I'm being ripped off.".....................19310. Esther "Why is this happening to me?".................................................213Conclusion................................................................................229Appendix..................................................................................232About the Author..........................................................................241

Chapter One

"A person with my background just can't succeed."

A part from the unnamed woman in Proverbs 31, Ruth is the only woman in the Bible who is called a "virtuous woman." That wasn't, however, a description that came from her early years.

Ruth was born and raised in Moab, and the Moabites worshipped a god by the name of Chemosh. Part of this very lewd form of worship involved the sacrifice of young children to Chemosh as an offering (see 2 Kings 3:27). The mentality of all the Moabite people was distorted by this idolatry. A society that sacrifices young children is a society that has very little value for life or family. We can conclude from the atmosphere of her childhood and teenage years that Ruth was exposed to a highly perverse culture and the worst forms of human behavior.

Moab was considered a "cursed" place by the Jewish people. Centuries before, Abraham's nephew, Lot, had escaped Sodom with his two daughters. Lot's wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. Lot and his two daughters managed to hide out in the mountains after Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone. The daughters, no doubt thinking that they and their father were the only three people left alive on the entire earth, got their father drunk on two successive nights. They each had sex with their father and they each became pregnant by him. One of the children born out of this incest was named Moab. His descendants were the Moabites.

Because of the sin in which he was born, Moab and the nation that he produced was "accursed." God's Word tells us that there was no dancing, no praise, no gladness in the fields, and no joy in the streets of Moab because it was a cursed place. The Bible says this about Moab: "'Fear and the pit and the snare shall be upon you, O inhabitant of Moab,' says the Lord" (Jer. 48:43).

Can you imagine what it might have been like to grow up in this lifeless, idolatrous, sorrow-filled place? Those who worship idols are always disappointed and bitter to some degree because no idol can give a person life or blessing or a future. The idol worshiper invariably has to come face-to-face with the fact that he is worshipping a self-made, dead, lifeless god. What could be more sorrowful than taking the body of a dead child from before the altar of a dead god? A spirit of death hung over Moab, Ruth's homeland. She grew up under the oppression of that spirit. Her upbringing was very different from that of the man she married.

Ruth became the wife of Chilion, the son of Elimelech and Naomi. Elimelech was a Jewish farmer who had come to Moab with his wife and two sons to escape a severe famine that had brought all Judah to the point of starvation. Elimelech and Naomi were from Bethlehem. Both of their sons-Mahlon and Chilion-married Moabite girls. The older son married a woman named Orpah. The younger son married Ruth.

Now, it was acceptable in Moab for a Moabite girl to marry a Jewish boy, but it was not acceptable in the Jewish tradition for a Jewish boy to marry a Moabite girl. Even if nothing was said out in the open, there had to have been an undercurrent in that home that something "wasn't quite right."

Mahlon and Chilion were apparently prone to sickness. Mahlon's name means "puny"-he may have been born prematurely. Chilion's name means "unhealthy." Both of these men died young. Elimelech also died. Naomi found herself a widow with two widowed daughters-in-law.

Ruth, who had lived under the shadow of death all her life, had encountered even more death. She who had known the bitterness and disappointment that are part of idol worship now found herself living with a mother-in-law who was bitter and disappointed.

All of these things must have played a part in making Ruth who she was. Experiences such as the ones she had, and the atmosphere of the environment in which she lived, must have had an impact on her psyche. We can say that our environment doesn't impact us, or that the comments of other people don't have an influence on us, but deep inside, we know that isn't true.

In the light of her past and the events of her present, there was something great about Ruth-she rose above her past. She had an ability to look at her past and present and say, "I want no more of this. I want something better. I want something more."

After the death of the men in this family, Naomi heard that the famine was over in Bethlehem, and she decided to return home. She began her journey with both of her daughters-in-law by her side, but along the way, she stopped and told them to turn around and go back to Moab-to return to their people and their gods. One daughter-in-law agreed and returned. But Ruth loved Naomi and "clung to her" (Ruth 1:14).

Naomi said to these young women, "Go back to your families. Go back to the customs and ways in which you were raised. I'm going to a place that is unfamiliar to you."

Ruth refused to return and said, "Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God" (Ruth 1:16). Ruth wanted the customs and traditions and God of Naomi. She was saying to her, "I'm going where I've never been to create something I've never had ... because in knowing you, Naomi, I've come to love you. I've come to know your God and love your God. I'm willing to go where I have never been to become something I want to be."

Ruth recognized that she had already experienced her past, and she hadn't liked it. There was nothing left that had any value to her. She made a choice.

Millions of people are where Ruth was in that moment. They each have a past they wish they could forget. They've already experienced their pasts, and what they experienced brought them nothing but pain and heartache. They see nothing of value in the pasts they've lived.

Are you there?

Is your past one that you wish you had never lived?

Is your past something that you want to continue to relive again and again?

You cannot enter your tomorrow as long as you hold on to your past. You must let go.

This is often easier...