Ruth 1:6 – 18 “When Naomi heard in Moab that the LORD had attended to His people by providing them with food, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to leave the land of Moab. Accompanied by her two daughters-in-law, she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road leading back to the land of Judah.
Then Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you to your mother’s home. May the LORD show you loving devotion,a as you have shown to your dead and to me. May the LORD enable each of you to find rest in the home of your new husband.” And she kissed them as they wept aloud and said, “Surely we will return with you to your people.” But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb to become your husbands? Return home, my daughters. Go on, for I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me to have a husband tonight and to bear sons, would you wait for them to grow up? Would you refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, it grieves me very much for your sakes that the hand of the LORD has gone out against me.”
Again they wept aloud, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; follow her back home.”
But Ruth replied: “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn from following you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD punish me, and ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped trying to persuade her.”
This is one of the most wonderful stories in the Bible, and it comes in the same time period as the Book of Judges, which makes it even more remarkable. Naomi must have been a fantastic lady! One of my friends once described her mother – in – law as her “mother – in – love.” Ruth and Orpah might have agreed with that description.
By now, Ruth and Orpah have been widows for a little while. In that culture, young women would readily re – marry, and there were probably men lined up waiting to marry both these ladies. But Naomi had been so kind and so loving to Ruth and Orpah that they didn’t want to leave her for anything. Finally, Orpah was persuaded to go back, but Ruth absolutely refused. Poor Orpah! This is the last that we ever hear of her. We don’t know if Orpah remarried, nor do we know what happened to her and her family once she returned to Moab. What would have happened to Orpah had she gone on with Ruth and Naomi? Perhaps Orpah would have become as famous and as highly regarded as Ruth. But Orpah chose to return to her familiar life in Moab and idolatry.
Ruth’s dedication to Naomi was incredible. Why was Ruth so willing to leave her own people and to risk remaining as an outcast among the Israelites? The only real answers were love and spiritual hunger. Ruth loved Naomi so much that being separated from her appeared worse than death. Ruth was even willing to leave her traditional gods behind to worship Naomi’s God, and this might be part of the key to the whole thing. Of all the family, it appears that Naomi was the only one who remained a true worshiper of the One True Living God once the family left Bethlehem. Hungry for truth, Ruth saw something in Naomi that was worth giving up everything else – a relationship with a real God and not an idol.
APPLICATION: It was Blaise Pascal who wrote,”“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?
This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself” Blaise Pascal Pensees
An “abyss” is a deep or seemingly bottomless chasm. Sometimes people have paraphrased Pascal by describing this abyss as a “god – sized vacuum.” No matter how one describes it, Pascal was correct. Only an infinite God can fill a hole that stretches to infinity.
The questions for us as we read this story are these: Are we choosing the safe and familiar, or are we willing to let God really fill the abyss in our lives and lead us into a fearful and glorious unknown future? Have we really let God fill up all the emptiness in our lives, or are we trying to fill it with food, work, sports, or other obsessions? As long as we choose anything less than God, we will remain unsatisfied and unhappy.
St. Augustine in his Confessions said, “Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.” Today, let us ask God to show us anything we have tried to substitute for Him in our hearts. May God help us to truly find our rest in Him.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving for us and for caring for us so much that You choose to be with us. Open our eyes to see the things we have been trying to substitute for You. May we reject everything that is not of You and may You fill our hearts and our lives. In the mighty Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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