COMMITTED

Do not press me to forsake you in turning back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Ruth 1:16

Jesus said, “Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:33). This seems backwards to our way of thinking. How can losing result in gaining?

For Ruth, the answer was simple. She carefully weighed all her options. She could stay in Moab and enjoy the little it had to offer or she could go with the bitter Naomi and lose her Moabite citizenship, her homeland, her culture, her pagan religion, her family, and potentially any future. But there was also more to this decision. If she stayed in Moab it would mean that she was turning her back on the true God with Whom she had so recently fallen in love. To her that was unthinkable.

So she emphatically declared to Naomi that she would stay with her. Verse 14 says that she “clung” to Naomi. This strong word is used in Genesis 2 to describe the joining of a man and woman in marriage. She was so insistent on this decision that she emphatically commands Naomi to stop trying to persuade her differently. The decision had been made and nothing was going to change it. And, as if that wasn’t enough, she seals her declaration with an oath inviting God’s curse if she left Naomi. (v. 17)

Ruth’s decision yielded long-term results. Because she placed her life in the center of God’s will, God was able to work through her to accomplish His will for the whole nation of Israel. When you do things God’s way, you always gain.

Philip Moeller