Returning Home

Read Ruth 1:1-18
Everyone loves a good story. In the book of Ruth that's exactly what we get. But it doesn't start out that way. It starts with what appears to be a young family in Bethlehem living at a time when they are experiencing a famine. So this family moves to Moab. The husband, Elimelech who was Naomi's husband dies leaving her with two boys in a foreign land. Her sons marry Moabite women but themselves die after living in Moab for about ten years. Now she's left alone as a widow, in a foreign land, without a husband and without her boys. However, she now has two daughters-in-law.

Naomi finds herself as they used to say in the old days, in a pickle. She's in a bad situation. She sees that she has nothing left, her husband and then her sons are all gone. And she's away from home. So she hears the famine in Bethlehem is over and she makes the decision to return home. Her decision affects her daughters-in-law. Orpah decides to stay in Moab but Ruth was determined to go with Naomi. In fact, she tells Naomi "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God."

Think about that! I believe there was something about Naomi's faith that showed itself to Ruth so that Ruth was more than willing to go with Naomi to her home rather than stay where she was originally from. When Ruth says your God will be my God that is a huge statement we should always consider.

Question - when people see your life, when they see my life would they respond like Ruth saying your God will be my God? If yes, way to represent! If no, why not? Let's be men and women who are about representing God with our lives so that others would see our Great God in us and through us!