Growing up whenever I was having  a “boyfriend problem” my dad would always respond with singing Stephen Stills, “Love the One You’re With.” I of course would respond with a roll of my eyes and seek out mom. 

As humans we have a “the grass is greener” mentality. 

We always think someone’s highlight reel looks better than our own lives. 

Someone else’s spouse is nicer, more engaged, more romantic. Someone else’s job is more exciting, pays better, and more appealing. Someone else’s kids are better behaved, more athletic, and smarter. We are constantly trading in what we have for the next best thing. The line at the Apple Store when a new version of the I-Phone comes out is enough evidence to make my point. We constantly want what we don’t have. 

Throw in a splash of hardship and we begin jumping off ship. 

Recently I have been studying the book of Ruth with my youth. I am one of those Bible book nerds and actually enjoy reading multiple commentaries to get biblical scholars takes on the sections I am reading. Ruth although only four chapters, has multiple levels of insight, but for me it is her obedience that draws me in.

Ruth is a Moabite woman who has married an Israelite who is living in her town with his family. As custom at the time, she is living with her husband’s family and taking care of her mother-in-law who is a widow. After ten years of marriage both her husband and her brother-in-law are killed, leaving the women left in the family widowed. With no family to care for them, they were about to endure extreme hardship. Being a widow during this time is equivalent to be homeless in our generation. Understanding this Noemi, the mother-in-law, decides to move back to her home in Judah (Ruth 1:7) and tells Ruth and her other daughter-in-law to return to their home and pray they will be able to remarry (Ruth 1:8-9). 

Orpah leaves but Ruth stays. Ruth moves from her own family, her homeland, and everything she knows to remain committed to Noemi, her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:16-18). We do not know the relationship Ruth and Noemi had in the ten previous years, but we do know the depression Noemi is enduring as described in Ruth 1:20-21

20 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 21 I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

I don’t know many who are committed to their in-laws in such a way they are willing to give up everything to be a support for them. If you have ever loved someone during a difficult time of depression it is not easy. Here Ruth is doing both.

When things get hard I run (not literally of course because physical running is for people who have more mental strength and physical endurance than I). I want to drop everything, even the good things in my life. I get an urgency to start over, a Fresh Start, so Just Call Me Jonah because if it is hard I just would rather not. 

If Ruth’s story stopped here then my desire to quit would be Biblically justified.

Instead what I found is God had already established provision for Ruth in Leviticus 19:9-10 and Deuteronomy 24:19

19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 

He is already providing provision for our hardship. There is provision for our day to day commitment. In our obedience to stay and work hard, despite not knowing what is next, God provides. For Ruth, it was through Boaz (Ruth 2:5-12). He allowed her to pick up the grain in his field. The provision is still not a hand out. Ruth has to remain invested in the hard labor of gathering, but the ability to remain on a safe land is a provision already set forth. Eventually Boaz took her as his wife. 

Again the fruit of her obedience does not stop here with a Disney “happily ever after.” In most books of the Bible the genealogy is found at the beginning, but for Ruth it is at the end. Her  obedience led to being the great grandmother of King David and an ancestor to Jesus. 

It is her obedience to “love the one you’re with” that established the fruit for generations to come. 

What is God calling you to be obedient to? What is your everyday hardship God is already providing provision for? What fruit could you be providing for your lineage?