Monday, November 10, 2008

Are You Willing To Work?

Another Old Testament favorite of mine is in the book of Ruth. Naomi, her husband, and two sons, had traveled to the land of Moab because of famine in their homeland of Judah. There, her husband died and she was left with two sons. They both married Moab women, one was Orpah and the other was Ruth. Then both of the sons died and Naomi was left with just the daughters-in-law.

Naomi heard news that God had blessed Judah with good crops so she planned to return to her homeland. She told her daughters-in-law to stay in Moab with their families but Ruth refused and went with her to Bethlehem. I don't know why she left her family to go with her mother-in-law but she did. How many people in this day and time would do that?

Since there were no men in the family, to survive, they had to go to the fields of others and glean, meaning they would pick up sheaves of wheat and barley that were dropped by the harvesters. Ruth went to the fields of Boaz to glean. When he noticed that she worked just as hard as his harvesters, he told his harvesters to drop handsful of purpose for her to pick up.

What intrigues me about this story is that even though Boaz was a good man and would probably have just given her what she needed, he didn't reduce Ruth's dignity and pride by doing that. She had to glean (work) to get the wheat and barley.

Apply that to today's thinking and it goes something like this. God will provide for you if you're willing to do a little work or as the old saying goes, God will help those who help themselves.

1 comment:

Kelly said...

My mother in law reminds me of this story all the time! :-) In fact, she brought it up again tonight when she wanted me to get her some tea. :-)