Exchanging the Familiar with the Unfamiliar 

Trials have a way of disrupting your present way of life. They can turn your familiar routine, your way of life, into a wilderness of grief and lost hope. It can make you yearn for the past and the familiar. Yet the disruption of what you knew can also turn you toward something new.

In Ruth chapter one, Naomi and her two daughters have experienced tremendous loss. All three have lost their husbands and Naomi tells her daughter’s-in-law Ruth and Orpah, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house (Ruth 1:8, NASB).” She planned to return to her home town of Bethlehem, and she encouraged Ruth and Orpah to return to their homes in Moab, to the familiar.

However, Ruth chooses to stay with her mother-in-law Ruth. Naomi told her, “Behold, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her gods; return after your sister-in-law (1:15).” But Ruth responded, “for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God (17).” Instead of returning to her Moabite roots and god, she embraced a new land and faith in God.

Trials can immobilize us, unsettle us, and leave us at a loss for what’s next. They can make us anxious about the future and its uncertainties. But trials can also move us toward a new land of a deeper faith and trust in God. We only need to listen to how God is stirring our heart, take the first step and follow God’s lead.

Boaz replied to her, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband has been fully reported to me, and how you left your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and came to a people that you did not previously know. – Ruth 2:11

Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz was the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David the king. – Matthew 1:5-6, NASB