Lay It on Me

G ETTING O UT OF THE C ORNER / 65

helping her and bringing about this increase. Ruth informed Naomi that her benefactor was Boaz. Naomi was thrilled because Boaz was her near kinsman—a relative of Naomi's deceased husband. It was a divine set-up. It was a pre-arranged God moment. Ruth was unaware of God's purpose for her. She did not move to Bethlehem with a pre-conceived idea, saying, "I can get a rich Jew to marry me and provide for me." In fact, most Jews of that day would never have considered marrying a foreign woman. It would have been a disgrace for them to marry outside their own race. God's law was so strict that even the High Priest was not permitted to marry a Jewish woman who had divorced or who was widowed, unless her previous husband had been a priest. Ruth must have known the odds were against her, but God had a plan. Ruth was willing to believe in the God of Naomi, and God was willing to use this woman because she acted in faith. "Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would increase abundantly" (Job 8:7). When God blesses you, He has your future in mind. We live a day at a time, but God is visionary. We pray, "Give us our daily bread," and cannot peer into the future to determine where we are going. But God's blessings are for our future. He who "declares the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end," has already seen the future.