Every married couple has a unique story to tell about how they first met. Ruth and Boaz met in a field of barley. With her mother in law's permission, Ruth went out to glean and “happened” on a field belonging to a close relative of Naomi's dead husband. Without a prophet to reveal definitely God's plans, the writer doesn't say, “God led her,” he just notes that it “happened.” We should tell out own children about how God has cared for us in our lives, often through events that just “happened,” or so it seems to us. One of my such stories is about finding an apartment to rent in Athens, Greece, in 1978. At the noon mealtime, Boaz came to see the progress of the reapers in his field and he noticed Ruth. “Whose woman is that?” he asked. When they told her who she was, he invited her to share their lunch with them, then invited Ruth to stay there the rest of the day and to follow his workers throughout the harvest. “Why are you being so good to me, a foreigner?” Ruth asked. Boaz replied that he know all that she had done for her mother in law and how she had come to Israel to shelter under the wings of Israel's God. Then he told his workers to let some extra grain fall especially for Ruth. At the end of the day, Ruth went home with 30 pounds of grain, and Naomi took heart when she heard that God had led Ruth to Boaz' field. What do you like best in the story – Boaz godly household, Ruth's humble work and words, or maybe just how in God's plan, they just “happened” to meet? |
