It is remarkable how God has woven throughout the whole of Scripture a scarlet thread of redemption. Each book found in the Bible, in one way or another, points to Christ. One book that does this wonderfully is Ruth. Ruth is a story of love, devotion, and redemption.
Each and every one of us has a story. Each of us has a desire to experience love and redemption. Many of us can share how we have found redemption. We could share how God’s story has intersected with our own. What we’ll discover from the story of Ruth is an amazing account of redemption that is both personal and wide reaching.
Ruth’s story occurs during the time of the judges, roughly 1200 – 1020 BC, the time between Joshua’s death and the coronation of Saul. This is one of the darkest periods in Israel’s history, filled with social and religious chaos. Ruth is a positive account in a rather negative era.
We discover an Israelite family; a man, his wife, Naomi, and two sons decide to go to live among the people of Moab due to a famine in Israel. So they leave Bethlehem, their hometown, to live among a people who were traditionally their enemy. Their decision would have been seen as both shameful and dangerous. This family, leave what was familiar for the unfamiliar, the known for the unknown. They were strangers in a strange land.
While in Moab the two sons marry. One marries a woman named Orpah and the other a woman named Ruth. Tragically the man and his two sons die leaving Naomi and her daughters-in-law widows. Two questions are raised. What kind of God is it that cannot keep a single Israelite alive in a foreign but not distant land? And, has God lost control? The author peaks our interest. Indeed God can bring hope to the hopeless, but will He?
Naomi receives word that the famine in her homeland is over, so she plans to return to Bethlehem. She pleads with her daughter-in-law to remain in Moab. Naomi has nothing to offer them. She has no sons to provide them with as husbands. Both daughters-in-law argue with her to allow them to stay. But, Orpah eventually heeds her mother-in-law’s advice and returns to her people. Ruth, however, chooses to remain declaring:
“Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you” (Ruth 1:16-17).
Orpah did the sensible, expected thing, Ruth the extraordinary and unexpected.
The first chapter of Ruth ends with Naomi and Ruth returning to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. The chapter begins with a family leaving Bethlehem due to famine and ends with two widows returning during a celebration of an abundant harvest. Amid a gloomy situation shines bright harvest fields and a devoted foreigner, Ruth. The chapter ends by exposing the first, faint rays of dawn on the distant horizon. The chapter leaves us with a glimpse of hope. We are left asking several questions such as: What does God have planned? Will Naomi and Ruth trust in the Lord and find Him faithful?
How about you? Perhaps, you are sitting in a circumstance with questions of your own for God. Let me encourage you, God is in control. There is always hope in the Lord. When God is at work, bitter hopelessness can be the beginning of some surprising good. In the remaining chapters of Ruth, we discover how God uses Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi to orchestrate a beautiful account of redemption for Ruth as well as for each and every one of us. Imagine what God can do in all the circumstances of our life, even the tragic ones. He brings hope to the hopeless and light to even the darkest of situations. The question we must answer, however, is: Will we find our hope in Him?
It is a privilege to be a part of Crosswinds. Let us encourage one another to find our hope in God. He is always in control and is always working. He loves us and is using our story to continue to weave the sacred thread of redemption found throughout the Bible, offered to all in Christ, and being experienced by everyone who places their trust in Him, throughout each of our stories as they intersect with God’s. I pray we will be found resting in His hope for us. Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)!