By R.v.Leerdam
At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.
“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to 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 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 realised that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. Ruth 1:14-18
What do you understand by the providence of God? God’s providence is his almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.
What does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by his providence? We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from his love; for all creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they cannot so much as move.
Some barely know a time when they did not know God’s love – being taught to sing, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so… from childhood.
Ruth was not part of God’s family when she was born.
Ruth was a Moabitess – not a descendant of Abraham, but a descendant of Lot, the product of an incestuous relationship with his daughter. – see Genesis 19:37
Who would have thought that the name of Ruth would be a part of Jesus family tree. Because she believed in an ALMIGHTY GOD who is able to do the impossible and who desires to turn all things out for good for His children, because His is a FAITHFUL FATHER.
In God’s plan all things work for the good of those who love him- who are called and chosen in Christ. Ruth was one of those. Through her life we can see how God worked for her good. When tragedy, sorrow or trials come our way we are called to live by faith in our Lord and Saviour fixing our eyes on Him.
God graciously reward’s Ruth’s obedience to the faith by giving her a husband and a son and even more – a place in the family tree of the Saviour of the world.
Ruth – a foreigner, was included in the genealogy of His Son Jesus Christ. A life of faithful service to God has an eternal reward, living in the new heaven and the new earth for ever and ever.
“To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.” Revelation 2:7b
Mama by the water 
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