But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Were you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Ruth 1:16
In the time of the judges, a man from Bethlehem named Elimelech relocated his family due to a famine. While in a foreign country, his two sons married Moabite women. Over time Elimelech and both his sons died, leaving three widows, one old and two young. The mother-in-law, Naomi, decided to return to her home, Bethlehem, and encouraged the young women to go back to their own mother’s houses. One did, but Ruth chose Naomi and her God.
The beautiful story of faith in God’s sustaining goodness is only four chapters long and I strongly encourage each of you to read it in full. Together, Naomi and Ruth forged a new life among Naomi’s kinsmen. An upright man of integrity, Boaz, becomes Ruth’s kinsmen redeemer. This means that he totally freed Ruth from any earthly obligation or another’s claim, so that he could make her his own, his wife.
As a bit of significant trivia, Boaz was the son of Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho, and he became the grandfather of Jesse, who was the father of King David.
Two women of non-Jewish heritage stepped out in faith. How do we offer our highest praise to the One who gives us everything? We move forward in blind faith, knowing He created us for His purpose and will use us for the Glory of His Kingdom.
Love,
Gretchen