Ruth 1:1-5 (ESV)
In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. They were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years, and both Mahlon and Chilion died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.
The above story is not the same as the story of Job, but the outcomes are the same. In Job we have the back story of Satan wanting to entice Job to curse God. Satan failed, although Job ended up going through a significant time of doubt and despair. Job lost everything but his wife. Naomi lost everything. We have no back story as in the Job account. We have no idea what was happening in the spiritual realm of Naomi’s life. We do know, from later in the book, that Naomi is not in a good spot spiritually. The book of Ruth is as much about Naomi finding her faith in God again, as it is in Ruth being woven into the fabric of Israel’s history. She will eventually become the great-great-grand mother to King David. These stories in the Bible give us great understanding of the tapestry of our lives in conjunction with God’s sovereign plan. There is nothing insignificant in these stories. God put Ruth right were God wanted her through the turmoil of Naomi’s life. Why? We have no idea. All we know is that as Paul stated to Romans centuries later, all things that God does work out for the good that God intended:
Romans 8:28 (ESV)
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
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