Life is not looking very promising at the onset of today’s chapter. There’s famine in the land. Tragedy has struck with the death of Elimelech, and later of Mahlon and Kilion. And now we have not just one, but three grieving women. There are no children, so no heir. It’s quite disheartening.
Then we see something in Ruth that inspires: “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from 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 even death separates you and me.”
I can’t walk away from those verses without being ridiculously challenged. She’s faithful, even when it hurts. She is willing to leave her family with no husband or hope of one, friends, her home, and the religion she’s always known, to live in a new land with her mother-in-law. And I think it’s crazy that she made this bold move without God clearly speaking to her as He had done with Moses or Abraham. She simply trusted.
-Gina G.
Do you think that perhaps Ruth totally trusted Naomi because she was a KIND mother-in-law? I believe that during the transitions and losses they experienced as a family Naomi stayed faithful to her God. After all was said and done Naomi plainly reflected the goodness of her God and Ruth could not help but want only death to separate her from that kind of relationship. We say "the apple does not fall far from the apple tree". Is our family resemblance to the Father the way it was designed to be? Do we reflect His goodness? Even in her bitter grief Naomi remained faithful to the One and Only God! That is contagious faith and I think Ruth got "rubbed" with a bit of it!
ReplyDeleteNever thought of it in that way before. Great insight, Gina.
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