God brings good out of evil. In the Book of Ruth, we have the story of a family overwhelmed with tragedy, but from that tragedy God arranged a marriage that in several generations would lead to the birth of King David and eventually to the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. A man, his wife, and two sons left the Promised Land for Moab. They went for economic reasons. Then the man died. His two sons married outside the faith, two Moabite women. Then they died. Finally, after ten years the surviving widow, Naomi, and her two widowed daughters in law, set out to return to her hometown, Bethlehem. When Naomi urged them to go home, Orpah did, but Ruth vowed to return with Naomi, with words often used in weddings, “Where you go, I will go, your God will be my God, until death do us part.” So they arrived home, and Naomi told her old neighbors, “Call me Mara [Bitter] now, because God has dealt bitterly with me.” But she forgot Ruth when she said that. |
