NAOMI'S SONG

I heard God express this train of thought to me while listening to my pastor's anointed sermon this morning. {When God Seems Far Away Part 2 (Ruth 1) / Rev. Nathan Eldridge (Ruth Part 2).

I was feeling the discomfort I have felt much of my adult life when being in a church service. It is a fear that the things God has shared with me cannot ever find a home in a church community. I have a perspective on things that is radically different from many in church. And because of a recent conflict I had with a pastor in a different church a few years ago, I had thought I would never go to any church again. 

I was not without Christian fellowship. In fact, the fellowship I have long had outside of the Church system is by far the most mature and spiritually viable communion with followers of Jesus I have ever experienced. But that fellowship is with people living in various cities and even nations. They do not live near me. And I had long wanted to experience such fellowship with a group of people in my neighborhood.


The story of Naomi is one in which she and her husband and two sons, in order to survive a famine, had to leave their home in Bethlehem and take up residence in a foreign country, a place that had a foreign God (Moab). This was very much my story. I had to leave my home in the Christian church world because of a lack of sustenance there.

And after moving to Moab, Naomi experienced the terrible loss of her husband and two married sons. This, too, was my story. After leaving my churched life, I experienced a dreadful loss of productivity and joy.

Naomi did not lose her relationship with God, but she was terribly embittered by the shocking level of loss. She was not holding onto lies about God. She was simply subjectively caught in terrible confusion about how God would have allowed such adversity to come to her. Me too.

Nathan, my pastor, states that Naomi's return was an act of repentance. I believe this is so, and I believe this is true of my circumstances too. Yet the nature of her (and my) sin is not easily understood. 

What I saw while listening to Nathan's sermon this morning was that the entire reason God drove her out of her comfort zone, her home, to Moab was to give her an aspect of life that she viewed as unholy, but which God wanted to redeem in her. This part of her is personified in this story as Ruth, the Moabitess. 

And sometimes, when God wants to restore to us an aspect of life we have written off as something unholy, the only way we can receive this redemption is if he has first taken away many of the things He has previously blessed us with. And in this state of utter emptiness, we are finally open to His redemption of this part of us.

For me, my inner Ruth was the mentality He wanted for me of putting aside my focus on what He might do for a Church community through me, upon me looking for the role He wants me to play, and instead, focusing on me taking the opportunity to show the group of people I am newly introduced to that I value them as a community.

You might think I should have had no reason to think such a mentality could be evil, but to me, I tended to view the prospect of such a focus as me selling my soul to fit in with some community. And doing that truly is evil. So, God had to redeem this heart of grace toward a community of people that is my inner Moabitess, Ruth. And He did this, as He did with Naomi, by taking me through much painful loss.

Hearing this from Him this morning gave me the courage I need at this point in my life to continue to hope and trust that He will make a place for my radical self in a Christian community. Naomi's fullness was restored via Ruth. She had to take Ruth home with her. She did not want to take her, but Ruth insisted on staying with her. Yep, me too. 

This song is about this part of my journey that is just now unfolding.


NAOMI'S SONG

The same God who gives us abundance
takes away all we can see
The same God who saves our glad souls
brings desperate calamity

Oh God, let me bring Ruth Home

The God of forgiveness and mercy
is the same God who convicts of pride
The God who has called and equipped me
has seen to it all my gifts died

Oh God, let me bring Ruth Home

This part of my heart once so foreign
Who, by suffering has come to my aid
This part of my soul you have redeemed
was only Your glory mislaid

Oh God, let me bring Ruth Home

You took me from comfort and safety
into a land that felt odd
to buy back for me what I needed
and did not believe was from God

Oh God, let me bring Ruth Home

Words, music & audio recording
© John Brusseau, 6/28/2026