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Ruth 2:3   So [Ruth] went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters.  As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.

The Hebrew of the second sentence of this verse is literally: ‘Her chance chanced upon the the portion of the field belonging to Boaz’.  The world would see this as ‘luck’ or ‘Fate’ or ‘coincidence’ because Ruth’s working for Boaz is what leads to a very ‘happy ending’ for all the people involved in this story.  Boaz is a well-heeled close relative of Ruth’s late father-in-law, Elimelech, and is therefore in a position to rescue both Ruth and her mother-in-law, Naomi, two bereaved and destitute women, from their otherwise hopeless circumstances.

But as we read this portion of Scripture we see the sovereign hand of a loving God at work on behalf of those he loves.  Yes, it was the same loving hand that orchestrated the famine that led to Naomi having a Moabite ‘foreigner’ for a daughter-in-law (1:1-4), and who even orchestrated their widowhood.  And it was this same loving hand that was using all these circumstances, the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’, to bring about the birth of King David (4:13-22) who would foreshadow, and be a key part of the process for, the sending of God’s Messiah.

Are we prepared to see God’s loving hand at work in ALL our circumstances, the ‘bad’ as well as the ‘good’?  Can we identify with the answer to Question 27 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which asks: “What do you understand by the providence of God?”: “Providence is the almighty and ever-present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty – all things in fact, come to us not by chance but from his Fatherly hand.”? 

It’s a challenge when things, as in Ruth and Naomi’s case, might not seem to be going so well for us!

– Bruce Christian