I have been pondering over the book of Ruth in the bible for a while now and I do realise what a fine character Ruth was.

She gave up everything to follow her mother-in-law -Naomi- who had lost her husband and her only two sons. Bible says, Naomi changed her name, which means Pleasant to Marah, meaning bitter, because she believed God had dealt bitterly with her.

Ruth 1:20 “Don’t call me Naomi”, she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life bitter.

Can you imagine how difficult it must have been for Ruth to live with Naomi? Does that resonate with you? But Ruth loved her hard.

It’s incumbent on us to love hard even when the odds are against us and not expect reciprocity. It’s about you, not the other person. I do not believe in the misnomer we follow as Christians nowadays- the belief that we having the power to rule as an expression of the gospel is not biblically sound.

Our faith in Christ has nothing to do with power or wealth. You don’t have to be influential or be accepted in society to be called “Loved of God”. In fact, all the great people who shared the gospel in the Bible are people who went through oppression and opposition. Having to go through this antagonism is what stirred the anointing, and to go through pain often accounts for spiritual maturity.

I’ve learned not to complain when life throws me a curve because when you look closely and follow till the end, you realize how God’s hand is powerfully in it all the way to the end.

Ruth moved to a foreign land away from her birth family and gleaned the fields so she and Naomi would have food to eat.  Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest.

When God calls you, He moves you out of your comfort zone.

Spiritual maturity is when you rise to the occasion when culture oppresses you.

I love this book so much and it so resonates with me that I could go on and on about it. She didn’t come from a rich famous family, thus a commoner, as would be described by many, yet, she had humongous faith in God.

Many would not describe the miracles in her life as big ones but all you see is God’s fingerprints in every step of her life until the very end.

Applying Ruth’s story to our lives today. *** God loves us all regardless of our race, nationality or social status.

Ruth was a Moabite, not a Jew, so she was automatically discriminated against. A little history on Moabites.. Moab was a son born to Lot out of incest with one of his daughters, after the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah( Genesis 19:37-38). According to Biblical account, the Moabites are the children of Lot.. so Ruth was more like an outcast. ***

BE OF GOOD CHEER AND CHARACTER

**** GOD WILL REDEEM YOU

God healed a young, hurting outcast widow, provided for her and brought her great love through Boaz. It doesn’t matter what you’ve been through, God has a plan that surpasses that.

** God is weaving something beautiful out of your life.

God promises to use every single event in our lives to bring about good. Leave a legacy of faith to your family and all those around you by trusting God and following it all through.

If you commit firmly to Him, there’s no limit to what God can do with your life.  Perhaps one of the best parts of Ruth’s story is the legacy God established through her. When God brought Ruth and Boaz together, they bore a son named Obed, who became Jesse’s father and Jesse also bore David whose descendant is

Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Ruth, a Moabite, was made a part of Jesus’ lineage.

Just in case you need a reminder, ”…all things work together for good to those who love God”- THINGS WILL WORK OUT FOR YOU. Trust the transition. God has got you.

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