“Then Naomi her mother in law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?” Ruth 3:1
God blessed us with a beautiful daughter, who has been faithful to the Lord from the time she was a little girl. When she left home to go to Bible College, one of the prayers we prayed for her was that she would find the right young man to spend her life with and God answered that prayer. This month she and her husband celebrated their thirty-sixth anniversary. I am so thankful for the way the Lord has blessed them and is using them in ministry.
Naomi loved Ruth and desired to see her happy and fulfilled. As Ruth returned from her first day of gleaning in the fields and reported how she had been received and blessed, Naomi realized that God was at work and that this was not a coincidence, but a God-incidence. So, she began to plan.
- Before she even knew whose field Ruth had been in, she prayed a blessing upon that man. “blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee.” Ruth 2:19.
- Upon learning that it was Boaz, she remembered who he was and how he had been kind to her family in the past. Ruth 2:20 “Blessed be he of the LORD, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead.”
- Apparently, Naomi did not know that there was a nearer kinsman than Boaz. “And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen.”
- According to the old Hebrew law, Ruth was already married to Boaz, so Naomi began to plan. The proposal she put before Ruth may seem foreign to us today, but there was nothing immodest in it in those days. Ruth 3:2-4.
Once again, we see how Ruth respected and honoured her mother-in-law and followed her advice.
Ruth 3:5-6 “And she said unto her, All that thou sayest unto me I will do. And she went down unto the floor, and did according to all that her mother in law bade her.”
In our world today, marriage is taken so lightly. So many young ladies do not look beyond the glamour and excitement of the wedding. How important it is that we pray for our daughters and other young ladies we know that the Lord will direct their steps and lead them to a husband who loves the Lord. We also can pray for the young men, even before we know who they are, that the Lord will keep them faithful God has a plan and a purpose for each one of them. I know it is not scripture, but we can trust that “the Lord works on both ends.”
Prayer: Thank you, Lord Jesus, for the plan you had for Ruth and the way you worked it out. We know that when we put our trust in you, all things work together for good.
Devotion by Anne Johnston
