Ruth 2:1-23
Mark & Jane’s story: seeking
Martin Luther, the great 16th century reformer who spoke about life being about God’s grace being all about God’s work and God’s story once said
This life, therefore is not righteousness but growth in righteousness
Not health but healing
Not being but becoming
Not rest but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it;
The process is not yet finished but it is going on;
This is not the end but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory but all is being purified.[1]
So when you become aware of a shortcoming in your life, do you find yourself treating it as a great crisis? Do you find yourself run to despair, do find yourself reaching for excuses, do you wish for instantaneous perfection or deliverance.
So often we face the question for ourselves
What is our life like
What’s your story
Last week as an exercise I asked you to think about if you could use only 6 words to describe yourself, what would sum you up what would you write? A 6 Word Autobiography…
Like Mother, Father, Brother, Sister, Friend
Seeker, Finder, Sought-After Found
Fearful, Forgetful, Ambitious, , Angry
Trying, Stumbling
6 words you’d use to describe yourself truthfully- not 6 words others have given you but 6 words from yourself
Naomi’s first word was Emptiness
Today Naomi adds another to hers returning
we start intersecting the lives of where we live
Where the things from our past are significant and we need to know
That they do not determine our future
so the recap on the book of Ruth so far
We started out with the story of a family from Bethlehem
Who head out to Moab to chance their hand at better fortune
After severe drought devastates the land they know
Elimelech leads his family out, his wife Naomi
His two sons Mahlon & Kilion who then marry a couple of local girls from Moab
The story we soon see spirals downwards
In this new town trying to settle in and make a new life
Within 10 years both Naomi’s husband dies followed by the death of her two sons
Naomi returns to Bethlehem
It’ s during the time of the Judges and everyone is doing what they think is right in their own eyes
Naomi’s return is a reminder for her of the loss and bitterness of the life she has now left behind in Moab
Moab is now the burial place for her husband and her only 2 sons
On the way to returning Naomi spells it out for her 2 daughters in law Orpah returns home Ruth clings to Naomi
The Moabitess will leave her land having never been before part of this new community except through marriage
Ruth sees things this way
16 “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. 17 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.”
Naomi is bitter in her soul, she has returned empty and lacking
She too is on her journey with God and we soon see
God is about to show her grace
It is all about to turn because this is about the great story of God