The Journey Brought Forth "Ruth"
This blog series is focused on God’s word bringing people through their journeys in His intentional way that He has set in front of them thereby bringing them through to His completion.
Exodus through Malachi is the section of scripture that most Christians find themselves living in its revolving pattern of realization, but once they receive its revelation, the Third Stage of Life is what their lives are built upon instead of attempting to achieve. Ruth gives us a portrait of a foreigner being attached to a messenger from God in their land and holding to the relationship they have with that person until they realize the great gift of redemption that has been set in place.
The Book of Ruth begins with a famine driving a family of Israelites into a foreign land. The two sons got married to two foreign ladies in the land, the father dying in that land, then the two sons dying also. This was horrible to the wife and mother in the family to be the only one left of the family of four that had entered the land and the two daughters-in-law by her side. She told them they needed to go and live their lives by finding other husbands and continuing their life’s path, but one of them refused to leave. Her name was Ruth.
Ruth followed Naomi back to Bethlehem and started gathering the leftovers in the field after the men gathered the harvest, as was the custom for ladies to do during the time to help support themselves. Ruth happened to do her gleaning in the field of a man named Boaz. Boaz was the second closest relative to Ruth’s husband and the custom of their time was to marry the deceased’s next of kin’s wife and bring up children for them, and redeem the possessions they had lost.
After Boaz had shown interest in Ruth, she told Naomi and Naomi instructed Ruth how to proceed by approaching him properly. The day after Ruth made her bold move to get Boaz’s full attention, he went to her next of kin and cleared it through the man and got an approval to continue the development of their relationship. Just like Ruth’s experience of being drawn to a foreign land and meeting her redeemer, God does this for His people today. Typically, God leads His people into their relationships with Him through other people and they know exactly what His people should do because they have traveled the road to get to Him themselves.
Boaz took Ruth the Moabitess for his wife after he cleared it through her next of kin, and had Obed, King David’s grandfather, and King Solomon’s great-grandfather. God directs His people’s steps to bring forth His plan in their lives for them and generations to come.
The Book of Ruth allows God’s people to know even if they seem to have been born in the wrong geographic area and/or to the wrong financial status family, God’s abilities are not limited, but they may only seem limited by people’s vision.
