Even When I Can’t See
Ruth - It Just So Happens…
November 12, 2023
PAIN
14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over.
15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Even if she gathers among the sheaves, don’t embarrass her.
16 Rather, pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”17 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah.
18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.19 Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!”
Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.
20 “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 kinsman-redeemers.”21 Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’ ”
22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with his girls, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.”
23 So Ruth stayed close to the servant girls of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law. —Ruth 2:14-23
19 When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”
20 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter.
21 I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” —Ruth 1:19b-21
HESED
Hesed is wrapping up in itself all the positive attributes of God: love, covenant faithfulness, mercy, grace, kindness, loyalty–in short, acts of devotion and loving-kindness that go beyond the requirements of duty. —Daniel Block
6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love (HESED) and faithfulness, maintaining love (HESED) to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. —Exodus 34:6-7a
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love (HESED), that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. —Psalm 90:14
10 Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love (HESED) for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the Lord, who has compassion on you. —Isaiah 54:1018 Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy (HESED). —Micah 7:18
Even when Naomi couldn’t see it, God was loving her.
So how do you keep your heart free from this kind of bitterness?
YOU BRING YOUR PAIN TO GOD AND CHOOSE TO TRUST HIS CHARACTER.
1 How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I wrestle with my thoughts?
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
4 and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
5 But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
6 I will sing the Lord’s praise,
for he has been good to me.
—Psalm 13:1-6
IS IT TIME FOR A NEW STORY?
5 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. —Romans 5:8