WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: Our sense of identity can be rooted in all kinds of things – gender, family, ethnicity, class. As you read this passage consider where you get yours from.

Belonging by faith
Boaz noticed Ruth because she worked so hard without taking a rest and he enquired who she was. Ruth asked, ‘Why have I found such favour in your eyes that you notice me – a foreigner?’ (v 10). But Boaz commends her – this is not an issue of race – for she has been faithful and committed.

He speaks of her as one defined by the covenant, taking refuge under the Lord’s wings, where she is now safe. This is emphasised in verse 14 as they eat bread together. Belonging to God is by faith, and this is a relational reality.

God’s providence
Naomi ponders the plan for Boaz to take care of Ruth through a tradition called levirate marriage, whereby a childless widow was married to a male relative of her late husband who could give her a son.

The son would be given the name of the first husband rather than that of his natural father. Could this be God’s providence?

Respond: Make a list of all of the things that identify you: your name, family, birthplace, bank account, status, job, achievements, failures. Write over the top of this list: ‘I belong to the Lord’. As you do this, pray and ask God to be the foundation of your life. Turn away from things that hinder him being Lord.

http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-09-05