I’ve been reading the Old Testament this year, and am enjoying understanding the full story of God’s creation, the sin and obedience cycles over the ages, and the love for His children through it all. I’ve finished the Pentateuch and am continually amazed as I can now connect stories I’ve known from the New Testament to the original promises 2000 years before Jesus’ ministry. I’ve also been schooled along the way, not knowing that in the Book of Joshua, the Israelites weren’t just handed the Promised Land. Nor did I know that the Book of Judges is about twelve warriors and leaders, not the Supreme Court Justice role models I’ve been imagining.
So, when I arrived at the Book of Ruth, I smiled …and exhaled. I had the feeling of hiatus after reading about the wars, the plunders, and the burning of towns in the prior books and feelings of comfort, as I’ve studied this scripture before. Flipping through these pages, I settled in, like a long-awaited chick flick, remembering the feel-good, Hallmark movie ending, including a marriage, a new baby, redemption from the community, and even whispers of a future king.
As the book opens, we witness the beautiful friendship already established between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. The bond grows deeper after the men of their family die and the women return to Naomi’s hometown of Bethlehem. Ruth displays her loyalty to Naomi in her reply:
“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you.
Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.
Your people will be my people and your God my God.
Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried.
May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely,
if even death separates you and me.”
When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her,
she stopped urging her.” Ruth 1:16-18
This time reading through the story, God is revealing Naomi in the starring role. I never considered what characteristics Naomi must have shown to Ruth over the ten years living together that would have caused Ruth to desire to go to a foreign land. There must have been moments of tension and disagreement since these women came from different cultural backgrounds, but also moments of tenderness and affection that Ruth must have valued more to leave her own family and religious traditions behind.
Nor did I consider the humility and courage Naomi showed to go back to her hometown. As she returns to Bethlehem, she says, “The Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty” (Ruth 1:20-21). Even as she said these words, she was confident that the extended family and community would care for her.
It is this loyalty to the Lord, that brought Naomi home, and it must have been appealing enough to Ruth that she followed. These two women chose to stick together, and through their obedience, allowed God to step in and lead Ruth to the fields owned by the man who would ultimately provide the happy ending:
“The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” Ruth said.
“The Lord bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.” Ruth 2:19-20
It’s beautiful to see in a few short chapters, relationships working the way God intended (we see them played out perfectly by Jesus in the New Testament). We witness how Naomi stayed true to her faith. She experienced hardship, and she returned home with bitterness toward God. Yet through prayer and belief, she remained obedient to Him. We see how Naomi and Ruth love and depend on each other, truly becoming family, and how Naomi teaches her Israelite customs to Ruth. We also watch how they interact with the community and the blessing their friendship brings others:
The women (of the community) said to Naomi: “Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he (grandson) 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.” (Ruth 4:14-15, emphasis mine)
The thought of adult children and their spouses joining our family has been on my mind even before getting to the Book of Ruth. About a month ago, I was on a flight and started a conversation with the lady sitting next to me about her successes and suggestions for maintaining strong relationships with her adult children. Sara shared easy, yet intentional actions she did while her children were still home, which have continued as they went to college and moved out on their own. She also shared the importance of building relationships with the people they marry, even if at a cost to her ideas and advice. We spoke for the final 30 minutes of our flight, and I carefully wrote down her wisdom when I arrived home.
Reading the Book of Ruth through my faith lens has prompted many more thoughts because I too would love such beautiful relationships with my future children-in-law. Besides praying for my children’s future spouses, what seeds can I start planting today to build deeper, faith-filled relationships one-on-one with my children? What can we start doing today that will make them want to remain close to us as they start their own families? Since our children are not close to marriage age, I find myself pondering: How can I share my faith with their friends today in a way that is appealing? How do I have conversations about the importance of having close family relationships?
A beautiful example was shared weeks ago of how multigenerational relationships can work in the modern world. It was during halftime of our children’s Homecoming football game and the senior class court was announced. As each prince or princess had a short biography read, one girl’s story included her love and gratitude for her family, and recognizing another family at the school that over the years, had fed her and built into her. It was heartfelt to hear.
I often think of families with a patriarch as the leader, but ladies don’t miss the influence we can have as strong mothers, mothers-in-law, and even second moms! We influence current and future generations by creating loving and welcoming spaces to be together, share our faith, and speak wisdom into the future lineage of our family tree and others.
Generational legacy can start with us. Naomi is a powerful witness of how her obedience and loyalty to God, allowed Him to direct her life. And how sharing her faith with her daughter-in-law allowed her faith to continue through the family tree, which is a Royal tree: Naomi’s legacy is the Great, Great Grandmother and Ruth is the Great Grandmother of King David, and a few generations later, of the Messiah Jesus Christ.
Please pray with me:
Lord, thank You for this beautiful book of scripture as guidance on how to be intentional in relationships today. You have shown me a different look at a story I thought I knew already. Thank You for nudging me to see what You see, and for giving me Your words to read and understand. Thank You for the amazing role models of obedience You have put in my path already, and for the next generation I get to link arms with now. In Your son Jesus’ name, Amen.
Originally published on www.Goodwordproject.com