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Oct 15, 2023 06:00am

One Unsuspecting Moment

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It came quietly, without much fanfare, as most significant things do. You never know the moment you will step into all God has been preparing for you. You can spend what seems like a lifetime praying, begging God to move on your behalf, and then one unsuspecting moment can usher in the new.

Everything had been stripped from her, and her life was over for all intents and purposes. Husbandless, childless, and homeless, she set out for a country not her own, her mother-in-law by her side. Long, dusty roads led to an unknown place. She wasn’t heading toward the homeland where she was born and raised. She was walking to a place she had never been, to live out the remainder of her days among a people not her own. When everything has been taken, uprooting the little life you have left and moving to an unknown land does not seem to be that bad. After all, what is there to live for when all has been taken?

She had no way of knowing new life lay ahead. For all she knew, the future only held more lack. More barrenness. More heartache. She walked onward anyway.

When you have found yourself at the end of your resources, what else is there to do but keep going? An aimless wandering heart, wounded and uncertain of what to make of the rubble that has become life, presses onward one heavy step at a time.

I pause to ponder the bleak beginnings of the book of Ruth, and the lack resonates. I have felt the desolation of spirit that loss brings. Daily disappointments that seem to never change, no matter how hard I pray, can bring barrenness to the soul. Prayers seem to stay locked unanswered in the throne room of God. You have prayed so hard for God to intervene and move on your behalf, yet circumstances continue to yield a pain-filled lack.

One of the most valuable lessons in Scripture is how God takes what the needy need and uses what they have to create the miracle.

Ruth.
What do you have?
A mother-in-law.
Go with her to her homeland.
Just walk and watch what I do.
Watch how I show myself faithful on your behalf.

I never would have imagined walking with my mother-in-law to her homeland would provide the context for the miracle, yet that is exactly what happens to Ruth. I wonder if Ruth had the same thoughts but chose to walk anyway.

Ruth’s quiet miracle happens during an ordinary day as she is going about her work. She had no way of knowing today would be the day her lineage would be chosen and renamed. One minute, she is bowed low, gleaning the field, and the next, she is rising to walk into a renamed beginning. Healing has found her with renewal on its wings.