So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her, the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”
Then Naomi took the child in her
arms and cared for him. The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!”
And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David.
(Ruth 4:13-17)
And they
all lived happily ever after. Well, probably not. But notice what the women
said. According to the law, Boaz took Ruth to be his wife in order to provide
Malon and her with a child to carry on Mahlon’s family line. In that sense, Ruth
was a sort of Hagar for Naomi. If Ruth hadn’t been Ruth, she might have found
that more than a little difficult to accept.
But Ruth
was Ruth, and Obed was another tie between her and Naomi. He carried on Mahlon’s
family line, but Scripture also makes it clear that those customary niceties were
just customary niceties. When it comes to genealogies…
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. (Matthew 1:5-6)
But there’s
something in it, too. How are we at sharing our blessings? Boaz was willing to
step in and share his life’s blessings (wealth) with Ruth and by extension,
with Naomi and her husband and son. Ruth was willing to share her blessings
(Boaz and Obed) with Naomi (at least in a figurative sense.)
Of course,
in the cases of Boaz and Ruth, it’s relatively simple to figure out what at
least one of the blessings they shared was, but it would be several generations
before it would become a little clearer the extent of that blessing, and many
more generations before the bigger picture would be revealed, and I would argue
that we still don’t really have more than a clue.
None of
the people in the story looked beyond what was clearly visible. They
weren’t setting out to bless Israel or the world. They were normal people, behaving
in what they would consider normal (even if we think it strange.) This
brings us back to the chaos theory
notion that a butterfly flapping its wings in South America results in a
Typhoon half the world away. I’m dubious about that specific progression, but the
concept holds true. We can’t know how much the things we consider mundane may be
used by God to do something spectacular, perhaps a thousand years after we die.
Some would
say that thinking in terms of others or the world being blessed through us is
easy – if we’re a great singer, musician, actor, sports star, hero, politician,
writer, etc. But what about my life? What if the only things I do today are
eating too much and holding the door for someone at a place that can’t be
bothered with automatic doors? What if my day is that inconsequential? Do you
see the problem?
It’s easy
to discount the normal things. It’s also easy to effectively cripple ourselves.
In the previous paragraph, I assumed the worst. Yes, the most significant thing
I may do in a day is overeat or hold a
door, but why am I limiting myself to that? If I can hold a door for someone,
then I can hold a door and smile or say “Hi.” And that act may make someone’s
day a little better. If I can hold the door, why can’t I pick up a piece
of litter? It’s not just that we think what we do doesn’t matter, it’s that we
set ourselves up to do nothing that matters. The excuse is that when we think
our “flapping our wings” might cause a typhoon, we’re being arrogant. “Look at
me, I caused a life-giving storm that kept the equator from overheating and
caused a lot of damage!” Being arrogant is bad. But thinking that God may use something we do to bless someone isn’t
the same as claiming that we caused a typhoon.
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