The Marketplace: Home Is Where You Are

"...Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.

 Your people will be my people and your God will be my God..." - Ruth 1:16

The Marketplace Discipleship group has started up again since our return and we've finished our study of Ruth and will be moving onto the book of Esther in the weeks to come. 

In the first chapter of the book of Ruth, we see a whole lot of suffering. Similarly to Job (our previous study), she knew the loss of family and the devastation of having nothing. Then Ruth chose to leave her family, her home, her gods, her friends and even her sister-in-law to travel to an unfamiliar country with unfamiliar people, resulting in more loss. She chose to trust in an unfamiliar God and follow the only person she had left, her mother-in-law Naomi. 

I can't begin to imagine how displaced she felt to no longer a community to provide comfort in her pain. Naomi bitter with the loss herself, tried to persuade Ruth to remain behind so she could have a chance to find happiness again. 

But Naomi became "home" to her. 

In our discipleship group, we discussed how God had his hand on Ruth by leading her to a certain field that belonged to a certain man. God had his hand on Boaz, softening his heart towards a foreign woman and welcoming her into his care. God also had his hand on Naomi, revealing through provision that he still had a plan in the midst of suffering.

What we found incredible was that Ruth's story seemed hopeless but it sure didn't end there.
Not that Ruth or Naomi knew it, but God was actually setting the stage for an epic story of redemption. And the redemption of Ruth's story continued down the family line to King David and ultimately to Jesus Christ. 

If God can do that in Ruth and Naomi's life, surely he can do that in ours. This incredible story that offers so much hope, despite the circumstances that enter our lives. And like Boaz redeemed what was lost in Ruth and Naomi's lives, Christ redeems what's lost in ours. 

The word "redeem" means to 

rescue

restore

regain 

what was once lost.

He has the ability to do that and more.

He is our redeemer. 

Trust in the one who knows your story from beginning to end. 

He will come through for you too. 

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,
 who have been called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28