But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Where you die I will die and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
If you like fairy tales, then I encourage you to read the entire book of Ruth. It is just 4 short chapters, but what a story!. It begins tragically when Naomi’s husband and two sons die. With all the men of the family dead, Naomi encourages her two daughters in law to return to their people and she plans to return to her people. Now both Orpah and Ruth tell her that they intend to stay with her, but she urges them to turn back. Orpah reluctantly turns back and goes back to her people, but Ruth refuses and this is what brings us to the scripture passage above. Ruth’s undying commitment for Naomi brings her a fairy tale ending. She marries a wealthy man and they have a son and Naomi lives with them and they live happily ever after. Now this son that is born to them is in the lineage of David and this makes him a direct descendant of Jesus Christ. So it’s a good thing that Ruth had the kind of commitment that she had to her mother-in-law.
It takes commitment and determination to have that fairy tale ending. As Christians our “Happily Ever After” is truly just that. We get to spend eternity, like forever and ever, in heaven with God our Father. But for us,to get there takes commitment and determination.
One of my favorite fairy tales is Cinderella. Poor Cinderella is treated like a slave by her wicked stepmothers and stepsisters. But she gets this once in a lifetime chance to go to the ball where she meets the prince. They meet, the prince falls in love with her but she has to run out at midnight. In the process she drops that glass slipper. That is the one chance the prince has of finding her and he searches the entire kingdom until he finds the owner of that slipper. The prince didn’t just say “oh well, she was a great girl, too bad things didn’t work out”. He didn’t try that slipper on two or three people and give up deciding that searching the whole kingdom would be too hard. He searched until he found her.
Maybe it’s laziness but sometimes we are too quick to take the easy way out. We want to take the path of least resistance. Life as a Christian is not always easy. If you are looking for something super simple, this is not it. But I will tell you one thing. I have lived my life straying away from Christ and it was so much harder than the life I have with Christ. You see I still experience hardships but I go through them knowing that my “Happily Ever After” awaits me in the end. I know how my story ends. I know that I am just passing through here and that some day God is going to call me home. I know where I am going to spend eternity. So for those reasons, I am committed and determined to love God and do my best to do His will and not mine.
Naomi begged Ruth to leave her. She strongly encouraged her to turn and go back to her people, but Ruth refused. When we accept Christ as our savior, the devil will try his best to get us to return to a life of sin. He will make it look so appealing. He will lie and say that it doesn’t matter. He will lie and say that just this one little sin won’t matter. We must be committed to Christ and determined to do His will.
My prayer for you today is that you have determined to follow Jesus and that you are committed to a life with Him. When we do this, it pleases God, but it doesn’t really benefit God. God wants us but he doesn’t need us. We need Him. We need his provision, his security, his love.
If you haven’t already done so, turn to Christ today. If you have turned to Christ, but lack commitment, rededicate yourself to Him. Do what it takes to insure your “Happily Ever After”.
Have a great day!