Last week, our family rented a cabin and spent several days off the grid, enjoying time together and taking a few day trips to some of our favorite places. It won't surprise anyone to know that one of those places was our favorite amusement park. During the summer, my daughter Julia and I traveled there on Mondays to work as ride operators. In the process, we made some new friends and got to know some of our coworkers on a deeper level. It was a wonderful adventure.
On Saturday while we were at the park, we made a point to go and visit some of the people we worked with so we could say hello. The park was busier than I had ever seen, but we were able to find a few of our new friends at their stations. Then, at the very end of the night, we ran into the supervisor who hired us. He was walking through the park, keeping an eye on things, and preparing to send out the message via walkie-talkie that it was time to shut the rides down. While he waited to send that message to the ride operators, he chatted with our family, and he said something to me that caused me to realize that my relationship with the park and the people who help run it has changed in a major way.
When he learned that we had been enjoying the park all day, eating the good food and riding some of the rides, he said, "I wish I knew ahead of time that you were coming. You could have stopped at my office and I would have given you passes to ride everything for free." I have to say it felt kind of special to know that the people who run a park that has been so deeply loved by our family not only know me by name, but openly treat me like family now when I show up, and would choose to bless me with free access to what they've built and paid for. That's a level of favor I have never experienced in that context before, and I was grateful.
Have you ever experienced something similar that felt welcomed, but not necessarily deserved? In a very real way, the nature of our relationship with God involves our reception of a divine form of undeserved favor from Him toward us. We're being blessed because of the work Jesus has done on our behalf. We're being shown favor by God the Father through our union with Jesus Christ. It's an amazing reality to attempt to comprehend, and it's a concept the Lord goes to great lengths to illustrate all throughout the pages of Scripture. We see a powerful example of that favor in the second chapter of the book of Ruth.
In Ruth 2:1-13, we're told about some of the early experiences Naomi and Ruth had in Bethlehem after returning from the country of Moab. During those days, these women would have obviously been focused on attempting to get their lives established in this community after being gone so long. The basic tasks of finding shelter and sustenance would have been high on their list of priorities. It appears that they had a place to stay, so the next concern would have been obtaining food.
One of the things that amaze me about life in our country at present is how uncommon and out of place it feels to hear of someone going without food. It certainly happens, but it's more of an exception than a rule. Most people in our country have never gone a single day without food. In our country, it's not only common for the poorest among us to have three meals a day, but in many cases, obesity is a typical struggle for those living in poverty because of the kind of food they're eating and the fact that provisions are being made for calorie consumption through snacks and sugary drinks that essentially equate to the equivalent of five meals a day. Historically speaking, this is a very strange arrangement. To my knowledge, it has never before occurred in the history of the world.
At the time Naomi and Ruth were living, starvation was a very real possibility and a common form of death for the poor. The land had recently experienced a famine, and I'm guessing there were plenty of people who didn't survive it. Now that the famine had subsided and harvests were more plentiful, it was considered a real blessing to have sufficient food available to gather. And being that it was the time of the barley harvest, Ruth asked her mother-in-law's blessing to go, find a field that was being harvested, and glean among the ears of grain, provided that the land owner would allow her to do so. Naomi agreed to this request, and Ruth was providentially led to the field of Boaz who showed her great favor.
Under the laws of the Old Covenant, our compassionate Lord made various provisions for the care and feeding of those who were destitute and living in poverty. Landowners were instructed to allow the poor to gather grain around the edges of their fields along with anything that was dropped or left behind by the harvesters.
““When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.” ”
It was under this premise that Ruth set out to collect grain to eat that day, but please keep in mind that even though the Lord clearly stated this rule in His word, there was no guarantee that a landowner was going to follow it. Just like all things in God's word, people can often be selective about what we choose to follow, particularly when we think it might cost us something. Having just come out of a famine, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that some landowners were quite hesitant to follow this requirement to the letter.
I see this as another example of Ruth's willingness to take steps of faith and trust the Lord to provide for her even though she considered herself a foreigner and undeserving of blessing. She was willing to experience rejection from landowners who might rebuke her attempt to glean in their fields. There was also a real risk that she could be endangering her physical well-being by putting herself in the proximity of harvesters who may have been men of low character and prone to assault a lovely young woman who visited the fields they were working in. Finding the right field to glean in, and not being assaulted while doing so, were forms of divine favor that Ruth would truly need to trust the Lord to supply if she was going to succeed in her mission to find food that day.
By the grace of God, Ruth "happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz." That statement from Ruth 2:3 is somewhat entertaining to see when you're reading this story from the perspective that God was providentially guiding and directing Ruth's life. The reason she came to this part of the field was the same reason she was willing to follow Naomi from Moab to Bethlehem. The Spirit of God was leading Ruth. He was putting ideas in her mind and pointing her in the direction she should go.
We can also see the ways He was preparing the way for her because the story of her loyalty and kindness to Naomi had already reached Boaz's ears. He knew of her good reputation, and the Lord placed it upon his heart to show her abundant favor that would be a reflection of the favor and compassion the Lord delights to show His children. Not only did Boaz allow Ruth to glean in his field, he insisted that she not go anywhere else to do so. He gave her a place among the other women who gleaned there, instructed the men not to touch her, and insisted that she drink from the water that his servants had drawn whenever she thirsted.
Could you imagine being Ruth at the moment these words were being spoken to her? In recent days she had become a widow, left her country, moved to a foreign land, and was desperately attempting to gather enough food for both her and her mother-in-law to eat. Now she was being told that her needs would be provided for and she would be protected while receiving that provision. Ruth was overwhelmed with gratitude, and expressed her thankfulness with a great demonstration of the relief she felt.
“Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, “Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?” ”
Have we experienced this same sense of relief in our relationship to Jesus? Can we say we've come to a place where we're overwhelmed with gratitude for the favor He has shown us and the provision we've received from Him, even though we once lived as His enemies and as foreigners to His promises?
Every one of the blessings Ruth received in the natural sense, parallels a deeper, eternal blessing we've received through Jesus.
We've been pointed in the direction we should go. Just as Ruth was being led to a new land and then to a specific field within that land, so too is the Holy Spirit leading us. He isn't leaving us to figure out life on our own. He steers every heart that's submitted over to Him and points us where we're called to go and toward whom we're called to meet along the way.
The way has been providentially prepared for us ahead of time. Just as Boaz was made aware of Ruth's kindness to Naomi and became predisposed to show her favor, so too is the Lord preparing the way for us. He's orchestrating circumstances for our benefit and care, and He's causing hearts to be favorably disposed toward us for the purpose of fulfilling His redemptive plan for humanity.
We're encouraged not to go anywhere else when looking for spiritual provision. Just as Ruth was told not to visit another field, so too are we encouraged not to glean from the idols and false gods of this fallen world. No one can satisfy our hearts like Jesus. Every other "field" will leave us hungry and empty.
We've been given a place among a new group of people. Just as Boaz insisted that Ruth be included among the young women he trusted, so too have we been made part of a new group. Our common union to Jesus through faith also unites us to one another. Through Jesus, we're grafted into a new family, the church.
We're being protected from the one who seeks to harm us. Just as Boaz instructed the men working in his fields not to harm or assault Ruth, so too are we protected from the one who seeks to harm us. Satan is active in this world, and he seeks to devour anyone he can, but Jesus has secured the ultimate victory over Satan by rising from death. That same resurrection power has been granted to us, and we will not be defeated by sin, Satan, or death.
Our deepest thirst is being satisfied through no effort of our own. Just as Ruth was invited to drink from the water drawn by the men who worked for Boaz, so too are we invited to have the deepest thirst of our souls satisfied by Jesus. He has done the hard work of paying for our sin. Now He invites us to share in the fruits of His victory and share in the fulfilling satisfaction that comes from a relationship with Him.
“Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ”
