Ruth & Boaz were the great grandparents of David… who’s family tree would bring us glorious freedom in Christ! Jesus was the whole point of their story!
Naomi didn’t realize that God was at work in creating her story long before she was involved. Think about it….
God had His chosen people conquer the Moabites years before so that one day Naomi and her husband would move there during a famine and their sons would marry Moabite women.
God purposely created a path for Naomi to give her, by his grace, a role in his redemptive plan. She had no idea the move to Moab, death of her husband, marriage of two sons to Moabite women, and a famine, was a PERFECT story. It’s not a story she would’ve written herself and she got pretty depressed dealing with the grief in it all…. But it wasn’t meant to be a story of Naomi. Nor was it meant to be a story of Ruth, or Boaz….
It was a story of Jesus, the rescuer being brought to his people through the family of Boaz & Ruth.
I know it’s so hard to trust our mysterious middle part of our stories to the One who has prepared it, especially when it gets grievous, hopeless, lonely, and painful. But in your hard times remember this isn’t a story about you.
If Naomi joined us today she would totally be putting up her praise hands! She realized at the end of her life when she met her God face-to-face and full realization hit that all the things she lost and circumstances she endured were rubbish, because she gained Christ, just like Paul tells us in Philippians.
We need to learn from Naomi’s story and trust that God is bringing Jesus to the forefront of our lives. if she were here with us today she’d say, “Look for Christ in all things! Can you see God’s work in the past and in the present? And can/will you trust him with the future?
Jesus‘s birth, the Messiah provided through Ruth and Boaz, was the ultimate prize in Naomi‘s life and will be an ours, too.
~Shannon
Valley Women's Encouragement Conference 