Weekly Devotion no 59
22 October 2021
Bible reading – Ruth 3[1]
One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi spoke to her. She said, “My daughter, I must find a home for you. It should be a place where you will be provided for. 2 You have been working with the women who work for Boaz. He’s a relative of ours. Tonight he’ll be separating the straw from his barley on the threshing floor. 3 So wash yourself. Put on some perfume. And put on your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor. But don’t let Boaz know you are there. Wait until he has finished eating and drinking. 4 Notice where he lies down. Then go over and uncover his feet. Lie down there. He’ll tell you what to do.”
5 “I’ll do everything you say,” Ruth answered. 6 So she went down to the threshing floor. She did everything her mother-in-law had told her to do.
7 When Boaz had finished eating and drinking, he was in a good mood. He went over to lie down at the far end of the grain pile. Then Ruth approached quietly. She uncovered his feet and lay down there. 8 In the middle of the night, something surprised Boaz and woke him up. He turned and found a woman lying there at his feet!
9 “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Ruth,” she said. “You are my family protector. So take good care of me by making me your wife.”
10 “Dear woman, may the Lord bless you,” he replied. “You are showing even more kindness now than you did earlier. You didn’t run after the younger men, whether they were rich or poor. 11 Dear woman, don’t be afraid. I’ll do for you everything you ask. All the people of my town know that you are an excellent woman. 12 It’s true that I’m a relative of yours. But there’s a family protector who is more closely related to you than I am. 13 So stay here for the night. In the morning if he wants to help you, good. Let him help you. But if he doesn’t want to, then I’ll do it. You can be sure that the Lord lives. And you can be just as sure that I’ll help you. Lie down here until morning.”
14 So she stayed at his feet until
morning. But she got up before anyone could be recognized. Boaz thought, “No
one must know that a woman came to the threshing floor.”
15 He said to Ruth, “Bring me the coat you have around you. Hold it out.” So she did. He poured more than fifty pounds of barley into it and helped her pick it up. Then he went back to town.
16 Ruth came to her mother-in-law. Naomi
asked, “How did it go, my daughter?”
Then Ruth told her everything Boaz had done for her. 17 She said, “He gave me all this barley. He said, ‘Don’t go back to your mother-in-law with your hands empty.’ ”
18 Naomi said, “My daughter, sit down
until you find out what happens. The man won’t rest until he settles the whole
matter today.”
Reflection
Do you like pavlovas? I like them, even though I don’t like cream! I like different toppings – maybe passionfruit, or kiwi fruit with strawberries, or pineapple with ginger. Yum!
Have you ever made a pavlova? Did you know that, once you’ve put the pavlova in the oven and you leave it in the oven even after you’ve turned the oven off, the pavlova won’t crack? This is because the pavlova cools down as the oven cools down. We can’t see this happening – it’s working behind the scenes, but we just have to be patient and trust that it will.
If we’re not patient and take the pavlova out as soon as we turn the oven off, it will crack. Or if we don’t trust the process and open up the oven as it is cooling just to take a peek to check everything is ok, the pavlova will crack!
Now, a cracked pavlova is ok, but an uncracked one is even better. However, to get that, we need to be trusting and patient.
Sometimes it’s like this with God. Sometimes he is working behind the scenes, but we get impatient, or because we can’t quite see what he is doing, we decide to take matters into our own hands. We can be in a greater hurry than God is. Often the outcome will be ok, but if we wait for God, the outcome will be even better! Naomi and Ruth learn this in the story we heard today when they made decisions to take matters into their own hands instead of being patient and letting God work things out for them. They were attuned to what God was doing, but Naomi just wanted to speed it up a bit, which resulted in Ruth potentially being in a compromised situation.
However, as we saw last week, Boaz was a godly man of good character. He acted with integrity. He didn’t act rashly when he found himself in an unexpected situation. His heart and mind were guarded in the peace and love of God and so he was able to show poise and gentleness. As we saw previously, Boaz was attracted to Ruth because of her faith in God and so he seeks to honour her faith in his proposed actions.
How do we respond
when we find ourselves in unexpected situations? Jonathan Edwards, an 18th
century theologian and philosopher resolved ‘never to do any manner of thing
whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God.’ As
we grow in godly character, maybe the question we should ask ourselves is not
‘what am I to do?’, but ‘how may I best glorify God?’.
Hymn
Verse 1
To God be
the glory, great things he hath done:
so loved he the world that he gave us his son,
who yielded his life an atonement for sin,
and opened the lifegate that all may go in.
Refrain
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth
hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father, through Jesus the Son,
and give him the glory, great things he hath done.
Verse 2
Oh, perfect
redemption, the purchase of blood,
to ev’ry believer the promise of God.
The vilest offender who truly believes,
that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
[Refrain]
Verse 3
Great things
he hath taught us, great things he hath done,
and great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son,
but purer, and higher, and greater will be
our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.
[Refrain]
Fanny Crosby © 1875 Public Domain CCLI:69198
Prayer
O
God,
your
Son has taught us
that
we must receive our sovereign rule like a little child:
help
us to turn to you in faith and simplicity of heart,
so
that we may receive your blessing,
and
enter the kingdom your Son has promised;
through
the same Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.
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