Ruth, A Daughter with Integrity
What kind of woman do you think you are? Does your life compare to Ruth? Would you describe yourself as a daughter with integrity toward Jesus?
We compare ourselves to others to much these days. How we deal with mother. How we deal with children. How we deal with illegals. How we deal with ethnic backgrounds. We are stressed out by these dealings. Let’s see how did Ruth dealt with all of this?
Our Biblical Ground Work: Ruth
Ruth comes onto the scene as the wife of one of Naomi’s sons. He dies and his brother dies as well. Ruth is a young widow living with another young widow and her widowed mother-in-law. There is no men left and in those days men were the bread winners.
It is repeated to us over and over again that Ruth is a Moabite. A foreigner to the people of Israel. A relative of the people of Israel through Lot but a foreigner all the same. A relative of Naomi through marriage but nonetheless a foreigner.
Naomi was brought to Moab by her husband but is going home to Bethlehem without him. Ruth was born in Moab, but linked to Bethlehem through her husband family. She chose to remain linked to Bethlehem through her mother-in-law and she goes with Naomi to live in Bethlehem as a foreigner.
Ruth and Naomi need food so Ruth goes to glean in the fields. She is noticed because Boaz is supposed to notice her. He tells her to stay and work with his women and men so she does. We are told she works hard to provide for herself and her mother-in-law. She is mentored about Israelite living by her mother-in-law and soon lands herself a husband.
She is not only a foreign woman added to the lineage of her father-in-law’s family but into the lineage of king David and Jesus. Her whole identity was transformed for us with this story.
Our Biblical Life Lesson: If your whole identity is based in your integrity, your story can be as brilliant as Ruth’s.
On the surface it looks like Ruth has lost everything, her husband, her land, her family, her gods. We equate that lose to losing self. Ruth did not lose who she was in the process of serving Naomi. She was being herself. Her story is that of love, friendship, servant-hood and integrity.
We can learn to fill our relationships with integrity and still hang onto self in the process. There is great value in serving people with integrity but we need to place value on them first. All people have value but not always do we value them for the role they play in our lives.
I invite you to come in deeper with me in The Bible Gals community this week as we learn the Biblical Power Tools for valuing our integrity while valuing people.
