Year 4, Day 286: Ruth 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Provision

• Provision: God gives us what we truly need.  God knows our needs better than we can know them.  We learn to trust God to provide for us.

In the end, what makes Ruth a great story is how this Gentile Moabite woman finds her God by living among a people she did not know even though her mother-in-law tried at one point to convince her to leave her.  This is an incredible story of provision.  But it isn’t just material provision in things like land, food, and clothing.  It is truly deep spiritual provision.

Let’s start with Naomi.  Remember how Naomi was when she came back from Moab?  She was bitter.  She was angry.  See Ruth 1:20-21.  But look at her now as the story ends.  She has a grandson – and she doesn’t seem to care that technically the child isn’t biologically related to her!  She gets the opportunity to hold the grandfather of the greatest king of Israel in her arms.  She gets to hold one of the ancestors of God’s own Messiah.  Naomi is content.  God provided.

Now let’s look at Boaz.  Yes, Boaz gains the ability to acquire land and increase his materialistic wealth.  But more importantly he finds a spiritual equal.  He finds a woman whose spirit complements his own.  He becomes a part of the genealogy of kings.  He gets to fulfill the calling that God had invited him to accomplish.  He gets the opportunity to bear God’s love to two women that even the true kinsman redeemer had rejected.  God provides Boaz not just with material gain but even more importantly with spiritual opportunity.

And of course, let’s look at Ruth.  Ruth gains a new home.  She gains a new people.  She gains a son.  She becomes the great-grandmother to King David.  She gains a husband who is every way her spiritual equal and companion.  But perhaps most importantly, Ruth gains a relationship with God.  She once was a Moabite with foreign gods; now she is a worshipper of the true God.  God is faithful to Ruth and provides deeply for her in both material and spiritual ways.

<><