Your circumstances are uniquely yours. No one else experiences exactly what you have experienced even if they have been with you in various situations. How you deal with circumstances may depend on your background, or your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, or your physical limitations, or your financial status, or your position in the work place, or where you live, the list can go on and on.

Ruth and Naomi’s circumstances seem to be the catalyst that sent Ruth out into the harvest fields. They needed food.

(NIV) Ruth 2:2 “And Ruth the Moabitess said to Naomi, “˜Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.'”

***Notice that Ruth asked Naomi’s permission to provide their food. She put herself under the authority of her mother-in-law.

Under whose authority are you? Is your authority your husband or your parents; your “˜boss’; your Pastor or Priest; teachers or instructors? Ultimately God is our authority. How great a responsibility it is to be in authority, for we will answer to God.

What else can be noticed about Ruth in this verse? She was a willing worker…she saw the need and did something about it. Ruth was also wise in seeking work where she would find favor from the owner and workers. Even a willing and diligent worker may have challenges in the work place that should be dealt with according to God’s word.

(NIV) Ruth 2:3a “So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters…”

***Ruth put her words into prompt action. She did not procrastinate or find “˜reasons’ not to seek work. The gleaning of grain would be tiring, physical labor. Think about the stooping and lifting, hours on end…monotonous labor.

How do you view your job? Of what do you complain, or feel sorry for yourself, or are dragging your feet once you are on the job? Perhaps you enjoy your job, your co-workers, the challenges that you are presented with day by day.

(NIV) 2:3b “As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech.”

What seems to be mere circumstances

may actually be God at work for His plans to be fulfilled.

When you think about your circumstances, do you think of them in terms of God at work in them? Ruth and Boaz probably could not have dreamed of God being involved through them and using them in the lineage of Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. But that is just what God did. Your circumstances are not “˜happenstances’, God is at work!

How shall you now pray?