Going to coffee shops and nature trails happens to be my favorite past time. My sweet friend, Anne, took me to her favorite coffee shop last week and we sat together laughing, talking, and simply sharing life. As we began to discuss the details of our week, I told Anne that I had been studying the book of Ruth. I had read through Ruth many times before, and admittedly, I didn’t know exactly what the Lord was trying to teach me. However, rather than reading her story this time, I began to dissect the truth buried within her life’s tellings.
Lately, I have been discerning the difference between believing and having faith. Anyone has the capacity to rationalize and believe. However, faith is acting upon your belief. Not only can you think something to be true, but to have faith means surrendering to your belief. Believing is a brain game, but faith is a matter of the soul. Even knowing this, as a 19 year old Christian living in a counter-culture driven world, placing my faith in the Lord becomes very difficult.
As I have grown to know Ruth through her documented life, I have come to realize that Ruth was a strong woman, not by her own accord, but because of her unwavering faith. After Ruth’s father-in-law and husband passed away, Ruth declared loyalty to her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth, who did not know the Lord before her marriage, told 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.”
Though Ruth had barely come to know this God that Naomi’s family spoke of, she surrendered her full being to His will. She followed Naomi to her home land rather than returning and seeking the comfort of her own people. In doing so, she entered a land where she was labeled the minority and widowed, a sure promise that she was to be of lesser favor. However, Ruth endured and Ruth remained faithful. Eventually, she met Boaz, a man who gave her work and later secured her in marriage. Boaz cared for, both, Ruth and Naomi, correcting their troubles.
When a room full of people are asked to close their eyes and point “north,” very few are able to send their hand in the right direction. And when a room full of people are asked where they are going to be in five years, very few are able to truthfully predict where their life is headed. Ruth and I are from different times and opposite ends of the world, and yet, I can fully relate to Ruth’s story. For a young girl living in the midst of a counter-culture community, I am sure the unknown was frightening and the uncertainty of her future became paralyzing at times.
Each stage of life brings new beginnings and countless endings. With every closed door, another opens, yet open doors rarely lead you to a room full of treasure without first requiring you to go through a little bit of wiggling and adjusting to fit through the doorframe. Change is never easy, but it is always necessary. In order to grow, we can not remain in stagnant waters for too long. Ruth was called to leave all she had ever known in order to pursue all God had to planned to give her.
She followed Him blindly, not able to see the outcome of her own story, yet continuing to have a servant’s heart and a faithful soul. As I relish in the certainty of this moment “right now”, I realize that tomorrow is uncertain, and while I sit and ask God to reveal His plans for me, I realize I have to surrender the hold I have on my own. As God prepares me for the years ahead, I pray that I am wiggled, adjusted, and transformed to live a faith-filled life as a woman like Ruth.
