It won't take long. It's short. I'll wait.
Back? Okay, we're ready to go then.
Ruth was a champion of loyalty. Seriously.
She lost her husband, and her mother-in-law, having lost everything in her life, was hightailing it back to her hometown. She sent both of her daughters-in-law back to their own people so they could remarry and carry on.
But Ruth said, "no."
She was faithful and loyal, not just to Naomi, but also to God. She was a Moabite, and hadn't grown up with the God of the Israelites, but she was faithful and loyal nonetheless.
Then, when they arrived in Bethlehem, she continued to be faithful. She worked hard and was known by everyone for her diligence and loyalty. She worked to ensure their survival, and she followed Naomi's instruction, and became the wife of Naomi's relative Boaz.
Oh, to be like Ruth.
The Bible doesn't say, but I wonder how hard it was for her. I wonder if she spent some nights crying in anguish because she missed her husband (before her marriage to Boaz), or perhaps because she felt out of place and alone. Did she ever get discouraged by all the hard work she was putting in? Was she afraid?
Scripture doesn't answer these questions...but I'm thinking she may have.
I do. Sometimes it's so difficult to see the end in sight.
Will things ever improve?
Are the kids ever going to listen?
Can't the house stay clean for 5 seconds?!
How will we make it?
What does the end look like?God doesn't always give us these answers and we feel emptied by the mundane tasks. Sometimes, the answers are hidden...
And so are the rewards.
The last lines of Ruth list a genealogy that ends like this:
"Salmon fathered Boaz,
who fathered Obed.
And Obed fathered Jesse,
who fathered David."
(Ruth 4:21-22)
Obed, grandfather of David, was Ruth's son with Boaz. God chose an unlikely woman - a foreigner, a widow - to the the great-grandmother of David, whose faithfulness was so great that he was given the honor of fathering the bloodline of the Messiah.
Thus, so was Ruth.
Did she know that in her lifetime? No.
Sometimes, we can't see an end in sight, but faithfulness can, at times, be rewarded generations down the line, in ways we can't even imagine.
So, when the going gets rough, and you can't see the end in sight, remember Ruth.
God had a plan for her life, and He has one for yours, too...you just have to have faith and be faithful.
Linking up today for Titus Tuesday at Time Warp Wife. Check it out!
love this!
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