Grace to behold

Application

We expect the world to treat us badly, and they do not disappoint us often, and yet not every member of God’s family lives by faith in the Lord, seeking to please God.
The wording of this portion reminds us that most of life experiences are temporary—only the Lord knows how temporary, so let’s commit ourselves to remain faithful to the Lord in today’s situation, and then commit to the next and the next!
Conclusion: Throughout this passage there is much “Grace to behold”: God enabling Ruth to work in behalf of her mother-in-law; God enabling Boaz to “abandon more” to glean; God enabling Naomi to get past “Mara” and begin to see hope; God enabling Boaz to insist upon Ruth gleaning behind his reapers. May God the Holy Spirit train our spiritual eyes and enable them to see more and more of His grace that already is in our lives.

Bible Text

(17) So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. (18) She took it up and went into the city, and her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also took it out and gave Naomi what she had left after she was satisfied. (19) Her mother-in-law then said to her, “Where did you glean today and where did you work? May he who took notice of you be blessed.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.” (20) Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed of the LORD who has not withdrawn his kindness to the living and to the dead.” Again Naomi said to her, “The man is our relative, he is one of our closest relatives.” (21) Then Ruth the Moabitess said, “Furthermore, he said to me, ‘You should stay close to my servants until they have finished all my harvest.’” (22) Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maids, so that others do not fall upon you in another field.” (23) So she stayed close by the maids of Boaz in order to glean until the end of the barley harvest and the wheat harvest. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
-Ruth 2:17-23 (NASB)