Sometimes, when I'm not too caught up in my own life, I think about some of the situations in the larger world. I wonder about the Syrian families who have fled violence, leaving behind the lives they knew and winding up in refugee camps. I think about the Rohingya, stranded without a home. There are two refugee camps in Kenya with over 100,000 people in them. Each family was faced with a terrible decision, and they chose to flee, to choose uncertainty that might bring life over a situation that looked as though it would bring only death. In those times, you make the best decision possible, but so often, it doesn't turn out like you think, like you hope.
Ruth begins with one of these tragic choices. There was a famine in the land, so Naomi and her family flee to Moab, hoping to build a life there, but it doesn't work out like they imagine. Naomi's husband dies, and then her sons die, and she is left alone with her two Moabite daughters-in-law, each stuck in a situation they didn't anticipate, wondering what comes next, wondering what hope looks like for them.
In the bleakest of situations, God is there. The Bible isn't simply a highlight reel of people's greatest times in their lives. The Bible shows us the lowlights, the despair, reminding us that this part of life, that this part of the walk of discipleship -- when we are in despair, the Bible has something to say to these parts of life, too. The Bible is real, and it addresses real life issues, and this matters, because we can relate to what we find in the Scriptures, and what happens in real life can relate back to the Scriptures, to remind us that God is involved in real lives with real people, just as God is involved today, in whatever you are in, and there is hope that lives yet!
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