Ruth 4: Generous Hope
Written by Author and Speaker, Dave Hopwood http://www.davehopwood.com/
God Behind the Scenes
In Psalm 77:19, we are told that God led the Israelites across the sea, but they did not see his footprints. He was at work invisibly.
Your path led through the sea,
your way through the mighty waters,
though your footprints were not seen. [NIV]
Tom Shadyac, the director of the film Bruce Almighty, says that,
“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous”.
Many things happen in life which seem to be a coincidence and yet are moments when God could well be involved. It’s more than a coincidence when, early doors, Boaz meets Naomi’s closer relative at the city gates and they get down to business.
Author and speaker Adrian Plass once wrote,
“Much of the time we only see God’s knees.”
What he means, is that we are often like little children who have a limited view of things. We’re too small to see everything. God is way bigger than us and so our view of his work is limited.
Think of the ‘coincidences’ in the book of Ruth.
God’s hand is guiding human actions. Much of the time we don’t know what God is doing. But we do know what matters to Him. The writers of the Bible give us lots of guidance on that.
Proverbs 22:9 says, ‘Blessed are those who are generous, because they feed the poor.’
God is with us as we help those who are not as fortunate as we are.
Open Hands
In my first blog I quoted Eric Liddel, “everything we do can draw people a little closer to God.”
When we live with generous, open hands like Boaz, then our actions are helping to spread the word of God.
To spread the love of God.
To live the life of a generous God.
But this isn’t always easy. It can be costly.
Jesus lived with open hands and eventually those in charge of things put nails through them. They crucified him. But ultimately the sacrificial generosity Jesus showed resulted in change and redemption.
We cannot save the world, but we can bring hope. The story of Ruth and Boaz urges us to live with a generous attitude in all aspects of our lives.
Ruth 4:13-15
So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son.
The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”
A Lasting Legacy
If Ruth were alive now and could look back on what her story she would see the vital part she played in bringing Jesus into the world. Her son was Obed and his son was Jesse and his son was David. Ruth was the great-grandmother of King David. As the centuries went by the line of David’s family led to a man called Joseph who married a woman called Mary whose baby, Jesus was born in Bethlehem of all places!
A guy called Søren Kierkegaard once said that, “Life has to be lived forwards but is best understood backwards.”
In other words, we don’t always know what is happening from day to day, we often only understand things when we look back at what has been happening.
We may only see that God was at work when we look back at the big picture. And like Ruth, we may leave behind us a legacy.
Something that changes lives for good.
Reflect
Would you say you have seen God at work in some of the coincidences of life?
What does the phrase ‘living with open hands’ mean to you?
What sort of legacy would you like to leave, to your family and friends? To your church family? To your global family in God’s world?