The Book of Ruth

A couple of days ago I felt the need to pull out my Bible and open it to the book of Ruth. The book of Ruth is really short and so it didn't take me long to read it at all. I hopped into bed, opened up my iTunes and placed it on shuffle and began reading. I wasn't sure why I felt inclined to read Ruth when I started, but I had to laugh at God when He showed me that He knew what He was doing in the following way; Jesus Culture's song Where You Go I Go began to play on the shuffle mode and as Kim Walker sang the lines "where You go I go, where You stay, I stay" I read Ruth 1:16 which says, "where You go I will go, where You stay I will stay." It's funny how little incidents like that just show you that God is in the smallest parts of our day.

The book of Ruth shows how Ruth remains faithful to those that she loves, specifically, her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth's husband died, leaving her widowed and despite this fact, she remained with her mother-in-law. I can imagine how Ruth may have suffered - she found love and then it was ripped away from her. She must have ached, she must have felt alone and she must have felt angry, but she remained faithful to Naomi. The Lord rewarded Ruth's faithfulness, because in the end, Ruth found love, marriage and protection with a man named Boaz.

The book of Ruth taught me that I need to remain faithful to the Lord just as Ruth remained faithful to Naomi. It is so easy to doubt and to become faithless, especially when I find myself in times of suffering, longing and heartache. I need to return to the Lord in these times and I need to remain faithful. God's timing is perfect and He rewards those who are faithful to Him. Lately I have just felt the Lord saying "return to Me first Shannon and then I will reward you with the desires of your heart" and reading Ruth was just God's little way of reaffirming this for me.