Living after the example of Ruth.

I miss these awesome women of God.

 God has placed this deep desire inside of me to read the stories about the amazing women of God in the Bible & to place them as an example in my life & strive to be like them. One of my favorite stories ever is the boldness of Esther, but this past week I have dived into the story of Ruth & picked apart her amazing story!

First off, let's start with how DEVOTED Ruth was to Naomi (Ruth's mother-in-law) after both of their husbands died. 

"Then Orpah [the other daughter-in-law] kissed her mother-in-law good-by, but Ruth clung to her. 'Look,' said Naomi, 'your sister-in-law is going back to her people & her gods. Go back with her.' But Ruth replied, 'Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, & where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people & your God my God. Where you die I will die, & there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you & me.' When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her." 

-Ruth 1:14-18

Am I truly devoted to the Lord like Ruth was to Naomi? Ruth was not willing to leave Naomi whatsoever. She disregarded her commonsense, her worries, her future to remain close/faithful to Naomi. In that same way I must disregard the same things to remain devoted to my Father.  The only thing that Ruth would allow to separate her from Naomi was death. Even then. . .death cannot separate us from the Lord (Romans 8:38-39); praise God!

"'Let me go to the fields & pick up the left-over grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.' Naomi said to her, 'Go ahead, my daughter.' So she [Ruth] went out & began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters."

-Ruth 2:2-3

Ruth did what she had to do to provide for her & Naomi; she was WILLING. Another thing I noticed about Ruth in this verse was that she was TEACHABLE; she was open to learning from others. 

There is A TON more to Ruth's story: Ruth was DILIGENT (Ruth 2:7); she had RESPECT (Ruth 2:10); she was BOLD, she had FAITH, & found refuge in the Lord (Ruth 2:11-12); she was HUMBLE (Ruth 2:13); & she was PATIENT (Ruth 3:18), but I am going to skip ahead to another important characteristic Ruth displayed. . .OBEDIENCE.

Naomi gives Ruth directions on how to approach Boaz (Ruth 3:1-4) when Ruth replies:

"'I will do whatever you say,' Ruth answered. So she went down to the threshing floor & did everything her mother-in-law told her to do."

-Ruth 3:5-6

I love my niece.

As the story unfolds, Boaz & Ruth end up being married & they have a son named Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David. Ruth's faithfulness to Naomi produced a devoted obedience (she never even questioned Naomi) & because of her obedience Ruth was blessed with the awesome opportunity of being a part of the lineage of Jesus Christ! I told my dad during our coffee date this morning that despite the fact that Ruth couldn't see the bigger picture, she had faith & obeyed. We never know what is going to come from our obedience & there is going to be times where we will never see what comes from it, but isn't having that kind of a faith exciting?! 

This entire past week I have been blessed with the opportunity to get to know God's character a little bit more & I'll share more in my next post, but I really felt like I needed to share what I learned from Ruth this week. She was a woman of God & I am determined to follow her example.

I'm gonna leave you with some entertainment; the photo to the left is a drawing I did when I was 3 or 4 years old. After going to the dentist I started to draw my people with rather large teeth :) haha go ahead & laugh at me, I think it's hilarious.