The idea of new beginnings has an appeal to us, does it not? The thought of starting all over again, making better choices, taking a different path, avoiding the mistakes we made, wiping out the past—it just sounds good. Or maybe we’d just like something new and exciting in our lives, something to liven things up and put a little “jazz” in our lives.

During the restless years of my life, when I was wandering far from God, I was always looking for something new to perk me up. My first choice was a man, but if no man was around, then some new clothes or a new adventure—go somewhere for fun. I changed jobs three times because I was restless and was looking for something new to make life more interesting and exciting.

I remember that Saturday nights were particularly difficult for me: I never wanted to sit home on a Saturday night. I mean, if I was sitting home alone on a Saturday night, something must be wrong with me—that’s what I thought. So I always made plans for Saturday night, looking for something or someone who would fill my life with interest or excitement.

Sometimes people look for a change in their life to get out of a bad situation. They’re in a job they don’t like, so they look for a new one. They’re married to a person who doesn’t suit them, so they have affairs or get divorced. How many people do you know who have made terrible decisions because they simply wanted to get out of a bad situation? Could that be your story?

There is a story in the Bible of a man who was looking for a change; his name was Elimelech. He was a citizen of Bethlehem, sometime between 1200 and 1300 B.C., during one of the most tumultuous times in Israel’s long, troubled history.

Ruth 1:1–2 says the following:

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab. The man’s name was Elimelech, his wife’s name was Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem, Judah. And they went to Moab and lived there.

Elimelech made a momentous choice: He took his wife, Naomi, and their two sons, and moved from Israel to Moab, a neighboring nation. I’m sure he must have given it much thought and decided that a geographical change was exactly what they needed in order to survive. He had what would appear to be a good reason: There was a great famine in his land and he was having difficulty feeding his family.

It would seem a good plan by human logic. Yet when Elimelech left the borders of the Promised Land, he left the protection and provision God had promised to his people.

On Our Own Terms

What Elimelech did is one of those things you may have been inclined to do under the stress of circumstances; perhaps you have been tempted to step outside of God’s promise and seek solutions to your problems on your own terms. The Bible says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12). This decision looked right to Elimelech—going to this new place—but it brought him and his two sons actual death. They died there in Moab.

In our own lives, we may never face literal famines, but our “hungers” encompass more than food. All of us hunger in different ways:

  • We hunger for acceptance.
  • We hunger for vocational fulfillment.
  • We hunger for recognition and success.
  • We hunger for sufficiency and adequacy.
  • We hunger for love.
  • We hunger for marriage and children.
  • We hunger for financial stability and success.

 

These hungers can lead us to make changes that simply make things worse. We try to satisfy these inner needs by going to some new place, doing some new thing, or finding some new person. It just doesn’t work. True, sometimes God’s plan for our lives takes us to a new place, but when we are frantically trying to fulfill our dreams and desires by our own manipulative means, we’re going to make things worse.

We set ourselves up for great disappointment and defeat when we expect to find our inner needs met by some new circumstance or some new person, asking of them what they can never deliver. Only the Lord can bring about true change or genuine fulfillment, and he does it from the inside out.

Nevertheless. . . there is an Elimelech alive in all of us, looking for a new time and a new place, on our own terms. We’ve heard it said in words like these:

  • “My spouse isn’t fulfilling my emotional needs, so I deserve—no, need!—those secret fantasies, that pornography or that adulterous affair.”
  • “It’s obvious I’m not going to find a Christian mate to marry. Look how long I’ve waited. I’m going to take whatever looks good to me. It’ll work out in time!”
  • “I’ll never get ahead in this job by living by the rules. Nobody else does. If I have to cut a few corners to climb the ladder, so be it.”
  • “I know this video I’ve rented contains a lot of explicit sex and illicit relationships. But hey, this is life; you can’t find one that doesn’t. And besides, I need a little excitement in my life.”
  • “I deserve some new clothes, a new car, a better place to live. I’ll pay these debts off somehow, some time.”

 

We sell ourselves on our need to “help God work things out.” We argue our need to make a change, add some excitement, or get something new going because we’re empty.

Consequences

We all have free choice to make these kinds of decisions, but we can’t choose the consequences that result. Elimelech paid an incredibly high price for trying to solve his problem in his way:

Now Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth. After they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, and Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband (Ruth 1:3-5).

Elimelech chased a rainbow and lost an inheritance. He took his family with him, and they lost everything too—including him. He had left the boundaries of God’s Promised Land and protection, and found death. This untimely passing of these men was not an act of an angry God, but simply a commentary on what happens outside the covenant.

Jesus, who calls us into life, calls us within specific boundaries. He may have a new time and a new place for us, but only on his terms, not ours. When we step outside the boundaries of his covenant—his terms as given in his word—we will suffer the consequences and fail to find the new time and place we so desire.

How do we know if we’re walking outside of the “Promised Land”? First, we must test it by God’s Word:

  • If it is leading us to a life of sin or lack of integrity in any way, we’re leaving Bethlehem and heading for Moab.
  • If our motives are purely selfish and greedy, we’re headed for trouble in that Moab place.
  • If we’re simply going because we want something better—it’s all about us without any consideration of whether this is God’s best for us—we could be leaving the Promised Land and heading toward famine—famine of the soul.
  • If we’re leaving in fear or anger, we’re definitely headed for our Moab, whatever that might be.

 

Notice that the consequences of Elimelech’s poor decision spilled over to his wife and his sons; they suffered greatly because they were in Moab instead of in Bethlehem, the Promised Land.

When we decide to go out on our own and “do our own thing,” the consequences will spill over to others. You may have lived with consequences of decisions made by others that spilled over to your life and caused you harm. Through no fault of your own, you’re in a Moab country now—or have been at some time—outside of God’s blessing, experiencing hard times.

I want to remind you again that even when you make bad decisions, even when you knowingly head for trouble, even when you ignore the consequences of your choices and do it your way, our God is so powerful and loving that he can make even those rough places smooth. I made a decision thirty-six years ago to move to Chicago for a new time and a new place. I thought that I could find what I was looking for in a metropolitan setting—a big city like Chicago. My motives were all wrong; my decisions were not smart; my actions affected others, specifically my daughter. But even in all that—even though I lit the fire that caused the ashes—God has transformed my ashes into beauty!

You may still suffer some of the consequences when you leave the place of God’s blessing and head out on your own. Don’t despair: God is able to make all grace abound to you, and to use you to make you a blessing to others. Trust me—that is true!