Ruth, Abram, and Being a Blessing

Sunday night our family sat down to do devotions. The story was about Ruth and Naomi and Boaz...not the typical light hearted, easy to grasp point that our kid's book usually presents. It spoke about how great it was that Ruth had been cared for by Naomi, how Ruth was shown God by Naomi's actions, and how Ruth benefitted from Naomi's relationship with Boaz...it's a great story of faithfulness, family, and how God works through others to take care of His people. I tried to explain that to the kids, and the point was lost on them, unfortunately!

Sunday morning, the Sr. High kids and I talked about God's promises and how He keeps them. Specifically, we spoke about Abram (soon to be Abraham) and how God had promised to make a great nation of Abram's descendants, to give them the promised land, and all that kind of thing. The role that Abram and the nation were to play was simply to be a blessing to those around them -- to live out thier relationship with God in how they interacted with the other people living in the land surrounding them. And by doing that well, God's family would be added to -- as people saw how God's 'chosen' ones lived, they would be drawn to them and want to know what it was that they had!

The two stories tie together -- Ruth was not one of Abram's descendants! She became a follower of the one true God after living closely with and seeing His goodness in the lives of Naomi and Boaz...they were living out thier job of being a blessing to those around them. They loved her, provided for her needs, and in that showed her the love of the Father! Pretty cool...

So...what does this mean for us? I think we are asked to do the same thing! We have been loved on by God, and we are a part of the one true God's family! One of our tasks is to be a blessing to the people around us -- our own families, our neighbors, our friends, the people at the store or gas station, the list can go on forever! By living out the love we have been given -- allowing our actions to reflect the way God treats us -- we will be a blessing to the people we encounter, and we just might make them want to know what we've got that makes us so different...

verses:
Ruth! (it's short)
Genesis 12:1-4
Mark 12:28-34