The Book of Ruth
Day 1
"What's going on God?"
Read: Ruth 2:1-7
Elimelech and Naomi were Israelites who had to go live in Moab during a famine. During those years, their two sons married Moabite women. (Moabites were not considered to be ‘God’s people’—they were outsiders, foreigners to Israel.) Eventually, Elimelech and both his sons died. So Naomi’s family was devastated, leaving only her and her two daughters-in-law (Moabites, at that!) in the rough realities of the ancient world. Naomi was surely asking, “What’s going on, God?”
Ruth, one of Naomi’s daughters-in-law, chose to leave her own Moabite people to go back to Judah with Naomi. She did this because she loved and had devoted herself to Naomi. But the hard facts were that Ruth was very unlikely, as a foreigner, to find a husband in Judah and unlikely as a young woman to find work to support her and her aging mother-in-law. She would have to beg. At some point, Ruth was surely asking, “What’s going on, God? I go out begging and looking for food stamps when I could be with a dashing new husband in a new house with a two-car garage back in Moab!”
But in verse 3, the story continues: “As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.” In context, ‘as it turned out’ is not chance, but an event so remarkable that only God could have arranged it. It ‘just so happened’ that Ruth had the opportunity to glean the fields (pick up leftover grain). This happened partly because God arranged it long before. You see, God had given laws to Israel that required landowners to allow needy people to glean their fields. (See Leviticus 23:22.) It also happened because God crossed the paths of Ruth and Boaz at just the right time.
So, despite their circumstances, God provided Naomi and Ruth with an unforeseen means of making ends meet!
What is more, it ‘just so happened’ that the owner of the field was Boaz. God had also made laws that under certain circumstances, when a man died, certain relatives had the right and duty to buy the land to keep it in the family and marry the widow. (See Deuteronomy 25:5) In this situation, lawfully, Boaz was that man! In this way, the family was ‘redeemed’ (as the rest of the book tells us). In fact, the Hebrew word for this person is ‘goel’, which means ‘kinsman-redeemer.’
So, despite their circumstances, God brought a very real redeemer into Ruth and Naomi’s lives to rescue them from the crisis and brokenness of their family and show them a bright new future.
While it was happening, Naomi and Ruth were unable to see beyond their devastating circumstances, beyond what seemed impossible to restore. They surely were asking, ‘What is going on, Lord?’
What was going on? God was, from eternity, working ‘behind the scenes.’ He had made a way for their redemption all along.
In our present family circumstances, what we can see—the seemingly insurmountable problems of strained relationships, wounded hearts, undying habits, or crises—sometimes drives us to ask, “What is going on, Lord?”
Feeling so overwhelmed, so tired, so “I’ve-already-tried-that,” we can lose perspective and fail to see He is working behind the scenes—in ways we cannot even see!—to save us.
What is going on in your life and family? Do you need to invite God to change your focus from the insurmountable circumstances to the unseen hand of God working everything out?
Spirit of God, kindle in us today a renewed confidence in You that You are actively working behind the scenes to lead us and our families to redemption. We will not give up hope!
Bonus reading: Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) on ‘Providence:’
1. God, Who created everything, also upholds everything. He directs, regulates, and governs every creature, action, and thing, from the greatest to the least, by His completely wise and holy providence. He does so in accordance with His infallible foreknowledge and the voluntary, unchangeable purpose of His own will, all to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
2. God is the first cause....However, by this same providence, He orders things to happen from secondary causes....
3. God uses ordinary means to work out His providence day by day. But, as He pleases, He may work without, beyond, or contrary to these means [including miracles].