Hold on to GodSample

Unwavering commitment

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. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried.

This is a classic statement of love and loyalty. Remarkably, these words were not spoken by a husband to his wife or a wife to her husband. They were not spoken by a parent to a child or a child to a parent. They were not spoken by close friends like David and Jonathan.

No, they were spoken by a bereaved daughter-in-law to her bereaved mother-in-law, both of whom had lost their husbands. Moreover, Ruth was a Moabitess and Naomi was a Jewess returning to her Jewish homeland. Naomi was urging Ruth to return to her home and find a husband there.

Naomi did not have wealth, privilege, or position. Ruth would be in a vulnerable position if she went with the widowed Naomi. Furthermore, she would likely never again see her parents, her siblings, or her homeland. Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi would cost her enormously. Yet Ruth knew it was the right thing to do. And so, despite the cost, with loyalty born of faith, she proclaimed her unwavering commitment to go with Naomi.

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return 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. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. (Ruth 1:16–18)

God honored Ruth’s faith. God honored Ruth’s loyalty. For God would give Ruth a wonderful husband, Boaz, a kind and generous man. God would also give Ruth a child, Obed, and this child would have a son, Jesse, and a grandson, David. Ruth, who was not even Jewish, was chosen by God to be the great-grandmother of Israel’s greatest king, King David.

Even more importantly, Ruth would be in the royal line of the Messiah, the Son of David. When God had the ancestors of Jesus recorded in Matthew 1, you find Ruth’s name right in the middle of all the male ancestors.

Yes, God honored Ruth, the woman of faith, the woman who exemplified love and loyalty, no matter what it might cost her.