Day 2
Walking like Ruth
Eventually, they return to Bethlehem- the house of bread – to provision . . . to Jehovah-Jireh who is always our provider. When repentance happens, like Naomi’s return, the city is stirred. This is always the mark of salvation coming to town- there is great joy in the city. Goodness produces stirrings in the spirit (Ruth 1:19). While there, Ruth exhibits a covenant loyalty which God has called me to. In this season, I am standing with a family that requires that kind of loyalty which at times is hard to give. I am tempted to be like Orpah and return to my own family- with their list of dysfunctions and pains- their known problems and sins, but I am called to stand with this family.
How do you persevere through difficulties and obstacles? “A long obedience in the same direction is hard,” according to Friedrich Nietzsche. Like the threesome, Orpah, Ruth, and Naomi, I weep. I am often crushed by the pain of walking through trials with someone else. Yet, the wounds from a friend are better than kisses from an enemy. Naomi blames God for making her life bitter. She states, that, “I went away full and came back empty; God has afflicted me. He has brought me misfortune” (Ruth 1: 21). My question is, “If she were full, why did she leave?” Yet, Ruth states empathetically to Naomi, “Don’t urge me to leave you or turn back from you (It means to literally: do not make me repent of my affection for you). Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my god. Where you die I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:16-17). This statement was given during a period of much loss, difficulty, and pain for Ruth. The Lord knows that He has asked a hard thing of us; knowing He knows makes it easier. At the proper time, we will reap. We go forth weeping and casting seed according Psalm 126:1 and return with the harvest, the sheaths, with joy “(v.5). God is purposeful, “He carves our paths, authors each stroke, and weaves our courses into other’s lives” (Minter 51). May we reap the fruitful harvest of being formed in the image of Christ!
How do you persevere through difficulties and obstacles? “A long obedience in the same direction is hard,” according to Friedrich Nietzsche. Like the threesome, Orpah, Ruth, and Naomi, I weep. I am often crushed by the pain of walking through trials with someone else. Yet, the wounds from a friend are better than kisses from an enemy. Naomi blames God for making her life bitter. She states, that, “I went away full and came back empty; God has afflicted me. He has brought me misfortune” (Ruth 1: 21). My question is, “If she were full, why did she leave?” Yet, Ruth states empathetically to Naomi, “Don’t urge me to leave you or turn back from you (It means to literally: do not make me repent of my affection for you). Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my god. Where you die I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:16-17). This statement was given during a period of much loss, difficulty, and pain for Ruth. The Lord knows that He has asked a hard thing of us; knowing He knows makes it easier. At the proper time, we will reap. We go forth weeping and casting seed according Psalm 126:1 and return with the harvest, the sheaths, with joy “(v.5). God is purposeful, “He carves our paths, authors each stroke, and weaves our courses into other’s lives” (Minter 51). May we reap the fruitful harvest of being formed in the image of Christ!
Signing off,
M.J.
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