“Would you wait for them to grow up and refuse to marry someone else? No, of course not, my daughters! Things are far more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord Himself has raised His fist against me.” (Ruth 1:13 NLT)
Naomi’s words above reflect a heart that is broken from the trauma of life. Her husband and two sons have died, and she’s left with two daughter’s-in-law to whom she’s sharing these pain-filled words. She’s encouraging them to go back to their families and find a husband from their people, but while one of them leaves, the other, named Ruth, chooses to stay.
Ruth says to Naomi: “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!”
Do you love anyone that much? You can’t stay hopeless very long when you’ve got someone who loves you like that. It’s a beautiful story and in the end, Ruth marries a Jewish man and bears a son whose name is Obed. Obed became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of King David, who was a descendant of Joseph, the husband of Mary who bore King Jesus.
As long as our hope is in Jesus, there’s never a reason to be dismayed or hopeless. God is able to work through all things to bring good to those who love Him and are called to carry out His plans and purposes (see Romans 8:28). Look back across your life, as I have, and see the hand of God leading you. Yes, of course, like me, you very likely had some heart-breaking losses, but in the end, God never failed and the place you find yourself today, if you’ve lived long enough, is better than you ever imagined it would be.
In a recent Ron Hutchcraft devotional, he shared the following story. “I saw a particularly moving first-person story of one woman who miraculously survived the collapse of the North Tower that awful day. She tried to make her way down the long stairwell from her office on the 64th floor. She got to the 13th floor. That’s when the entire tower began to crumble. She fell to the ground as the building continued to literally collapse around her. She dropped 13 floors and ended up with her head pinned between two concrete pillars and her legs trapped in a staircase. She said, ‘I saw that no one came, and I wasn’t hearing any noises around me. So I thought, ‘I’m going to die here. I’m going to see myself slowly die here.’ The young mother; well, she prayed, she slept, she prayed some more. And at one point, she just asked God for a miracle. That’s when she heard noises. She yelled out, and someone answered back. She had been trapped under tons of debris for 27 hours. Here’s how she described what happened next: ‘I took a piece of concrete. I knocked the stair above me. And when they heard the knocking, they started to come closer. And then I put my hands through a little crack in the ceiling, and I felt the person hold my hand. The fireman found my hand and he said, ‘I’ve got you.’ And I said, ‘Thank God.’ She was the last person pulled alive from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.”
What “hopeless” situation are you facing today? May I be the first to let you know: If you know Jesus, it’s not hopeless! “Hopeless” isn’t a word in God’s vocabulary. If you aren’t dead, God’s not done with you. Your future may not look like you’d planned, but I’ll guarantee you this – it will be better than you have ever dared dream it could be.
Right now, please bow your head and read these words slowly and attentively, letting them reverberate throughout your soul: “Father, You are all I need. I may feel like I’ve lost everything, but when You are near, I can breathe hope for my future. I know no one loves me like You do. Today I’m going to trust You with all I am and all I ever hope to be. You’re my good, good Father, and I know with certainty that the future You have planned for me is far better than anything I could ever plan for myself. I love You! I trust You! I yield all of me to all of You from this day forward! Through Christ my Lord I pray. Amen.
If you don’t yet know Jesus, but you’d like to, please click this link. The Bridge to God | Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 