Unwavering Loyalty

Unwavering Loyalty

Ruth

Read: Ruth 1:1-18

These days, people often give up when the going gets tough. If a job is too demanding, we quit. When a friend is going through a horrible time, we may be tempted to “disappear” for a while. If a marriage becomes difficult, there’s always divorce. If it would be too inconvenient to raise a child, we can abort the pregnancy. Babies, young children, and the elderly are sometimes abandoned.

People have loved the story of Ruth for centuries, partly because of Ruth’s beautiful expression of unwavering commitment to her widowed mother-in-law. When Naomi prepared to return to her own country, she implored Ruth to go back to her family. Ruth chose instead to bind herself to her destitute mother-in-law. We can only imagine her anxiety as she faced a future of poverty among people who despised her native country. We have to admire the great love for Naomi that trumped all Ruth’s fears.

Sometimes following God seems too hard. He asks us to give up our old lives so that we can be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. We may sometimes be tempted to return to old habits, comfortable relationships, and former pleasures that conflict with our new lives. But if we love God, we willingly bind ourselves to him. There is no turning back.

Because of her love for Naomi, Ruth didn’t take the easy way out by returning to Moab. God’s love for us gives us, too, the courage to choose what seems to be the harder road. We may not clearly see where God is leading us, but we can be sure that it’s someplace we’ll want to be. Like Ruth, we will be rewarded beyond anything we can imagine.

[Ruth replied,] “Wherever you go, I will go.”

Ruth 1:16