Day 4- "The Ruth Factor"

Faithful in the quiet and the small, the very things we continue to pour out, while we wait

It often takes what we must desperately need ourselves to help someone else. The patience, kindness, and forgiveness, we want, is what God asks us to give to others. Just like Ruth did for Naomi, we pour our spiritual grain into another's lap. This kind of spiritual supply comes from being in Jesus’ presence, meditation and contemplation of the Word, and intercession. Minter notes, “ I’ve also decided that blessing so big we can hardly carry them get stored up for us there –often so we can carry them to the bitter, empty, and hungry” (Minter 111).

God sometimes asks us to spread our wings over someone. So many times we act like the next-of-kin who refuses to redeem Ruth or Orpah who returned to Moab. We don’t want to lose our inheritance on someone else. We have own needs to be met.   To rise up an heir for someone else like Boaz did for Naomi’s dead son is extraordinary self-less and Christ-like. I make a transaction. I exchange my rights and freedom to redeem another from hell.

In the end, God gives Ruth what she walked away from-- a home, a mate, and child, and in the process, she blesses Naomi. Ruth is accepted as a Jew and becomes an ancestor in the lineage of Jesus.  Her perseverance and integrity led to greater blessings and unleashed new seasons of harvest in her life. Naomi looked at her lack and saw that she had nothing to offer Ruth. God saw past that to the truth and the plan that He had to redeem both of them. God took Ruth from the fields to become the wife of the owner of the fields. From less than a servant, she became the mistress of the household. Do you feel like an outsider, but God is asking you to be a bridge-maker? It is hard I know. Imagine being single, African-American, and Christian, working with Hasidic Jews. I did that for four years.  Can we hold out long enough to see God’s promises fulfilled?

Signing off,

M.J.