Read Ruth 2:1-23

Broken, bitter, empty and alone with just each other, Naomi and Ruth followed the hope of God’s goodness to Bethlehem. That’s where they found deliverance. It’s where God used a man named Boaz to redeem them both from the bitter hand they had been dealt. And, although Naomi had exclaimed that she was all but done with hope, it had led them both to this place where they would see God’s hand provide beyond their craziest hopes for anything good to ever come again.

“As it turned out…”

God had a plan for redemption that included Ruth’s hard work, Boaz’s admiration and a field full of barley that needed picking. God led them straight to the man He would use to protect, provide for and love Ruth.  

Ruth had chosen to follow Naomi into a life in which all her hope literally lay in the truth that Yahweh God is good and He provides for His people. It’s how God got them to the place in their journey where they could leave the bitter empty for the beautiful safety of protection, love and full life. It’s the way God delivered Ruth and Naomi out of bitterness and into hope.

Ruth had come to take refuge under the wings of the God she chose to trust when she left everything she knew and moved to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law named bitter. And that very God brought redemption through Boaz. 

Have you come to take refuge in God too? He provided a Redeemer for you and me in the man called Jesus. His very life conquered death when He took our bitter shame, guilt, dark dark sin and left death behind in a Jerusalem grave. He provides safety and protection from the fear of living, of dying, and He gives deliverance from the darkness of shame.

It means trusting His way, believing with your whole life that He is good, like Ruth believed when she walked out of Moab into the way of the One True God. That very same God provides deliverance from our bitterness too. It means trusting Him enough to know Him, study His Word, follow His ways, even when life hits hard.

Especially when life gets hard.

Bria Wasson