Day 3: Ruth, the Foreigner

Have you ever felt left out, like you don’t belong? Ruth did too. Ruth was a Moabite woman who married into a Jewish family. Her father-in-law, brother-in-law, and husband all died very close together. Her mother-in-law, Naomi, decided to go back to Israel. While Ruth might have felt fear to leave everything she knew to be a foreigner in Israel, she decided to step out in faith. Ruth declared to Naomi in Ruth 1:16, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.”

Ruth put her trust in the one true God. She was willing to give up everything to follow Naomi to Israel and live as one of God’s own people. As a foreigner in an unfamiliar land, she did her best to provide for her mother-in-law. She went out to pick up the wheat that was left after harvest for them to eat. During that time, her faithfulness caught the attention of Boaz, who asked his overseer who she was. “The overseer replied, ‘She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, “Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.” She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter’” (Ruth 2:6-7).

When you read the rest of Ruth 2, you will see how God called Boaz to marry Ruth and become her kinsman redeemer. Boaz was a foreshadowing of who Ruth’s descendant was to us, and guess who that was? Jesus Christ, the Messiah, born as a baby in Bethlehem.

Jesus came for the lost and abandoned. He is our Great Redeemer. And for all who would put their trust in Him, He gives them the right to become children of God. We are given a new family—God’s family! And we are promised a place to belong eternally with God in Heaven. Even though we are pilgrims in a foreign land here on earth, we forever have a place we belong and a Father who loves us.

“Fear not to enter His presence in poverty,
Bearing no gifts to present as your own.
Bring truth in its beauty and love in its purity—
These are the offerings to lay at His throne.”
- David Steele
Adoration