Gleaning

Gleaning

Ruth

Read: Ruth 2:1-3

Just as she’d done every morning for two weeks, Jana sat down at the kitchen table with the classified ads, a highlighter, and a determined look on her face. The plant closing had hit without warning and affected many people in her town. With a school-age son, Jana couldn’t waste time in finding another job. She didn’t have a college degree, but she was young, healthy, and willing to work hard. Jana had gratefully accepted public aid the year following her son’s birth, but now she had resolved to take any job that would support the two of them.

As a widow with no means of support, Ruth took advantage of an Israelite way of providing for the poor. According to laws established by God, landowners didn’t harvest the corners of their fields, and the reapers left any grain that they dropped on the ground. Ruth immediately went out to find a barley field where she could work as a gleaner, following the harvesters and gathering grain along with other poor people. Although she was an outcast in a foreign land, Ruth found relief in hard work as well as comfort in knowing that she had found a way to help her mother-in-law.

Many people mistakenly believe that the Bible says, “God helps those who help themselves.” God makes it clear that salvation is a gift, not something that we earn (see Ephesians 2:8-9). When it comes to our spiritual growth, however, we have work to do. We can’t just sit back and hope that we become like Christ; we are responsible for feeding ourselves from God’s Word, seeking him in prayer, disciplining our wills to obey him, and serving others. If we don’t seem to be growing, maybe we need to get up and get to work.

Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.

Philippians 2:12