More Than Love…

This morning I thought about this being Women’s History Month and I haven’t selected one woman to write about. This changes today. My favorite Bible woman I think is Ruth – her background speaks to me, as one who was looking for more:

But Ruth said:

“Entreat me not to leave you,
Or to turn back from following after you;
For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God, my God.
¹⁷ Where you die, I will die,
And there will I be buried.
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If anything but death parts you and me.” Ruth 1:16-17 (NKJV)

Ruth found much more than a husband when she married. She found more than a sister-in-law, more than a mother-in-law – she found the Spirit of the Living God. In spite of their troubles (and these women experienced much heartache and loss), Ruth found a sustaining grace that was more than the love of mere mortals, it was the love of God Himself!

This love was something she had not experienced in her years growing up in Moab. It was something so precious to her that she knew that she could not live without it. She “entreated” her mother-in-law to take her with her. She knew that the Moabites were not looked upon favorably in Israel, yet the need to glean from Naomi was stronger than her fear of rejection. Learning from Naomi’s feet, she had acquired courage, strength, faith, and a love greater than hate. She knew that her very life substance was tied in to following the God of Naomi.

We all know how this beautiful love only multiplied, for Ruth not only gave love in her new land, she found it afresh:

¹³ So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife; and when he went in to her, the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son. ¹⁴ Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who has not left you this day without a close relative; and may his name be famous in Israel! ¹⁵ And may he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.” ¹⁶ Then Naomi took the child and laid him on her bosom, and became a nurse to him. ¹⁷ Also the neighbor women gave him a name, saying, “There is a son born to Naomi.” And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

Maria