When Life Falls Apart: The Ruth-Shaped Path Back to Blessing
The Book of Ruth has stirred my heart today in a way I didn’t expect! It’s a quick read—only four chapters—but its message has richly blessed my soul.
It starts with Elimelech of Bethlehem, who decides to flee from the judgment of God on Israel during the time of the judges. Famine had come, which God promised would not fall on Israel unless they broke faith with Him—which they had.
Faced with scarcity of food, instead of repenting and crying out to God as he should, Elimelech left his relatives, friends, and the land he inherited, and ran away to Moab, a people God had cursed (Deuteronomy 23:3), simply because he thought life would be better there—even though it was outside of God’s will.
He took his wife, Naomi, and his two sons, who married Moabite (not Jewish) women. As the story plays out, neither of these women was blessed with children, and all three of the men died in Moab.
Wow! That which began as a desperate escape became a devastating tragedy. What a heartbreaking mess!
Naomi had nothing and decided to return home to Bethlehem, feeling cursed and utterly empty. She sent both daughters-in-law back to their Moabite homes, but Ruth was so dedicated to Naomi that she wouldn’t leave her.
When Naomi pressed her to return to her Moabite home, Ruth made a profound vow of faithfulness to her mother-in-law, to the people of Naomi, and to the God of Naomi.
From that point on in the story, there is nothing but blessing after blessing heaped on Ruth and Naomi. Wow again! From cursed to amazingly blessed! From the darkest pit of despair to the radiant light of God’s grace—
all from one vow of faithfulness from a woman who wasn’t even a Jew!
From cursed to chosen.
From empty to overflowing.
From hopelessness to redemption—through one bold vow of faithfulness.
To me, the encouraging message in this story is that, in spite of how messed up, broken, and full of failure and bad decisions your life may be, God can, at any point, pour out His blessings on us and turn our empty, messy lives into something eternally significant. All we have to do is commit what’s left of our messed-up, broken life to Him.
I’m called to ask myself where I am in this story. My own life’s messiness and brokenness are evident to me, and I want to do something about it. Like Ruth, I sense a tug—a call to follow God with a deeper, more surrendered devotion than ever before.
Listening to God’s words to me in this story, I have come to the place where Ruth’s words to Naomi in Ruth 1:16–17 speak what’s in my heart to God:
“Do not urge me to leave You, O Lord, or to return from following You.
For where You go, I will go,
and where You lodge, I will lodge.
Your people shall be my people,
and You shall be my God.
Where Your Son has died for me, there I will die to myself,
and there will my old sinful self be buried.
I have committed myself to You, Lord God,
and nothing—not even death—will part me from You!”
May God draw each of us closer to Him.
If you know of someone who might benefit from this message, please share it with them.
Just a Follower of Jesus,
Alan W. Harris
