Are you safe? ABIDE
So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me.
Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with my servant girls.” (Ruth 2:8)
Ruth would make such a start in a romantic movie. Her first speech floored Naomi never to rise again, and she was stuck with this Moabite all the way to Bethlehem. In Chapter 2 this mother-in-law permits her idea to go pick some leftover grain wherever she finds a little favour to work behind the harvesters, and she ends up ‘stealing’ the heart of Boaz who lavished her with six blessings, and the seventh would surely follow, though later. ‘Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here’ – these words of Boaz show clearly that Ruth had found a home, a place of safety and welfare.
There is somewhere for you a place of safety and welfare; out of that place you are restless, anxious, sick and suffering most of the time. You need to go to your place of safety and you will be healed. Although the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, you’ll soon discover that anywhere away from your safety place will only bring very short lived satisfaction that soon turns bitter – talk about a cheating man in the arms of his mistress, a grown boy run away from home to club with friends, a disappointed wife exiting her marital home, a student trading with or eating their tuition fees, an unmarried girl sharing deeper love with her boyfriend – it all feels good, almost sweet at the start, but soon turns bitter and they regret.
The six blessings that Ruth found in Boaz’s field were both real and symbolic. She found and received more favour, more grain, drinking water, a refreshing meal, warm friendship, and good protection. As an undeserving foreigner she needed favour; she was poor and needed some grain; at work when tired she needed some water and a meal; she was lonely and vulnerable and needed loving friendship and protection from molesters and bullies. All these were lavished on her and the gratitude welling up was uncontrollable. This is what happens when you find your good portion, your place of safety and welfare. There are blessings, peace, joy and more beyond expectations.
Some of us need to find that place. Others have in the past found the place and run away, but they need to come back. As Boaz told Ruth, ‘Stay here…’, we need to find that place and abide there. It could be your home, spouse, classroom, or the work project, or the integrity you abandoned; go back and find that place and abide there. Even more symbolically, that place of safety and welfare is Christ himself. On earth we are foreigners and face many threats that we can only run away from when we receive Jesus Christ our Redeemer. Abide in Him.
God bless you all.