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Don't know what you've got 'til it's gone

"The women said to Naomi: 'Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer'" (Ruth 4:14). 

Have you ever noticed that you really don't appreciate something until it's gone? We have this terrible tendency to take things for granted. We start off taking our parents for granted. 

"I must really be cute and special." We think to ourselves as our parents coo and care for us. We assume that we are the center of the universe and that they will always be there caring for us. 

We take our homes, our cities, our schools, our churches, our nation for granted in the same way. We forget that they are not promised. That we are not owed these benefits. We weren't there when the price was paid to buy these things for us.

As we get older, some of us begin to understand the price of things. Someone had to pay the price for all the grace we get.

In the book of Ruth, a widow named Naomi had her world emptied. She lost her home in Bethlehem, her husband, and her two sons. She was homeless, widowed, and hopeless. She changed her name to "Mara," or "Bitter" because of the sorry state of her soul. 

But the book closes with Naomi's arms and heart full again. What began with a famine ended with fullness, what started with a funeral climaxed with a wedding, and a baby. Naomi was "Naomi" again, except even better.  Naomi had experienced redemption. Her heart was full of praise.

If you've never known emptiness or loss, it's hard to know redemption. Sure, we can say that we appreciate what Christ the Redeemer has done for us, but until we come to the end of our self-centered selves, we can't really praise Him. 

Have you come to the place in your life where you finally appreciate your need for redemption? In Luke chapter seven, Jesus taught that the one who is forgiven most, loves most. When we experience the emptiness and death of our own situation apart from Christ, we are finally ready to receive and rejoice fully in the redemption He offers.

I'm praising God today that He has not left us without a kinsman-redeemer!

 

Down to the threshing floor

"So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do" (Ruth 3:6). 

"His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Luke 3:17).

The threshing floor was the place in ancient times where the grain was separated from the chaff. The threshing floor was often located on a hilltop to catch the prevailing breeze which aided in this separation.

In this photo there are three implements for this process laying against the circular wall of a threshing floor. The large flat board with rocks imbedded in it was called a sledge. It would be pulled across the stalks of wheat or barley to begin to separate the grain kernels from their husks. The sledge might be pulled by hand or by an ox. Sometimes they would use a stick called a flail instead of the sledge, to beat the grain free by hand.

The other two implements are the winnowing fork and the winnowing basket. They would be used after the threshing process to toss the grain into the air, letting the wind blow away the chaff and allowing the heavier grain to fall back to the threshing floor.

The imagery of the threshing floor is found throughout the Bible. In Ruth it symbolizes the place where we lay down at the feet of our Redeemer and surrender ourselves to His work on the cross. In Luke we see it as the place where Christ the Judge separates the good from the bad, believers from those who don't believe.

The threshing floor might also be applied to us individually. Just as the stalks are beaten, then tossed into the air, and the grain separated from the chaff, so Christ does His work in us. He cleanses us of our unrighteousness and makes us like Himself.

Our call is to go down to the threshing floor, to lay at the Redeemer's feet. We can rest there. The work is His. He has finished His work on the cross and now as we submit to Him, it is He who will finish His work in us.

Have you been down to the threshing floor?

Finding favor

“Why have I found such favor in your eyes" (Ruth 2:10 NIV)?

Have you ever been someone's favorite? Favorite son, employee, player, student... have you ever been the "apple" of someone's eye? 

I recently read about an experiment with underperforming elementary age students that they divided into two groups. They took the first group of underperformers and changed their files to show that they had extremely high IQs but were not living up to their potential. The second group was designated the control group and they left their records unchanged. They assigned both groups to new teachers and classes.

What happened? The first group's performance improved significantly, but the second group's performance was relatively unchanged. It seemed that the teacher's expectations of the students greatly affected their work. The favor they showed the students that they expected to do well, ended up doing much better than before. 

Apparently, it pays to be teacher's pet.

In the book of Ruth, a foreign widow woman from the land of Moab moves to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law. She is a nobody-- no husband, no children, no property, and no hope. Yet, she goes out to work in a local man's field to pick up the leftovers that his servants have left behind hoping that God will show her favor.

God does. He leads her to the field of a man who shows her favor in spite of her situation. She had nothing, but he was the most wealthy, eligible bachelor in Bethlehem. God caused Boaz to show Ruth favor.

What is favor? It is the gift of grace. It is what God offers to us through the Bethlemite who loved us while we were still "underperformers," sinners alienated from God (Romans 5:8). We had nothing, but through His death, burial and resurrection He offers us everything. He offers us unmerited favor.

Why would He show us such favor?

Love. We who believe are the "apple" of Christ's eye.

Out of Moab

"In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah, together with his wife and two sons, went to live for a while in the country of Moab" (Ruth 1:1).

I once passed through the land of Moab, but I didn't try to live there.

In January 2005, I spent three weeks in Jordan visiting some of our WCC families working there. We spent most of the time working in the city of Amman, but we did get an opportunity to take a few sightseeing trips. 

On a trip to visit Aqaba on the Red Sea, we passed through the land just East of the Dead Sea that was once called Moab. As we journeyed South we passed by snow covered hills that seemed out of place in the desert setting. Other than the modern highway we travelled on, this land looked as if nothing had changed in centuries. It was a good thing our bus driver had a full tank of gas because I didn't see anywhere to stop for miles. The land of Moab was as it had always been, a land for sheep and goats, and little else. 

Having passed through Moab I can't imagine why anyone would want to live there. Yet, Elimelech took his wife Naomi and two sons from Bethlehem (Hebrew: House of Bread) to Moab to live. Probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Like a lot of men, rather than praying and staying, Elimelech decided to go try living outside God's promised land for a while. Perhaps he could see the snow capped hills in the distance and thought they meant better rain. He probably only meant to stay for a while. But man's worldly schemes never work out in the end. 

Ten years passed and Elimelech and both his boys were dead in Moab. Poor Naomi and her two daughter-in-laws, Ruth and Orpah, were left alone. 

That's when Naomi heard about there being bread again in Bethlehem. She decided to get out of Moab and return home. Ruth went with her. She had never been out of Moab, but with eyes of faith she followed Naomi into the "House of Bread."

Some of us end up in Moab because we take a short cut to pass through there, never meaning to stay. Others are born there and never know any better unless someone tells them of a better place.

No matter your reason for being in Moab, come out. The Bethlemite calls you. Come taste the Bread of Life. You'll never want to go to Moab again.

Unless you're just passing through on a tourist bus to visit the Red Sea.