It's Painful Breaking New Ground, But The Harvest, How Sweet It Is!

Shoving the spade into the sod, jamming hard against it’s edge with my foot, I loosen and lift clumps to reveal black dirt. It’s a labor-intensive project. I’ve filled more wheelbarrows than I could ever count with chunks of sod, and created several new flower gardens in the course of 12 years on our hobby farm.


The work was dirty-sweaty-hard, the process long, but when masses of bright orange and pink colored my views, I took great joy in the beauty.


There is no getting around the pain of starting something new. Thankfully, anticipation of ‘what might be’ accompany the challenges. The vision and hope for beauty and blessing on the other side of breaking-in are the fuel for forward movement.


Last week, Ruth and Naomi were heading to Bethlehem, a return trip after over a decade for Naomi, a new venture for Ruth. Heading home to ‘who-knows-what?’.


I live a little over an hour from where I grew up. I’ve always had a peripheral longing to return. Even now after living over half my life in Wisconsin, I have a desire to be nearer Minnesota. I call it my inner homing-pigeon. Is it just me?


I find such comfort in familiarity, routine and predictability. But as you know, walking with God isn’t about comfort. Actually, I’ve found the opposite to be true. I’m often outside of my comfort zone.


This second chapter of our study of Ruth is about walking through the invisible sphere from familiar to the unknown and getting a glimmer of hope for what is on the other side.


That is how I felt when I finally had the soil ready for the itty-bitty plants and placed them in the soil.


Ruth left Moab weeping, but full of faith in the God of Israel.


Her heart is full of confident hope, and her mind is set on doing what it takes to make things work. As she keeps doing the next thing, which in her case is gleaning wheat and barley from the edges of the fields, grinding it, cooking with it and then sharing it, we find a man named Boaz showing her hesed.


{Read: Ruth 2:5-9}


Hesed is Hebrew for kindness. A lavish, over-the-top, abundant, beyond your wildest dreams kindness.


Gleaners picked up the left-over scraps from the edges of the fields, but Boaz tells his men to take from their bundles and drop them for her. He tells them not to touch her, and he tells her to drink from the water the men have gathered. This may seem like a little thing, unless you realize that women and servants were water-gatherers in those days.


The hero of the story shows up as she is working. Boaz is a man of standing who’s men respect and honor him. Boaz has taken notice of Ruth and her heart to serve her mother-in-law as she works with great diligence.


And then . . .


In Ruth 2:8 Boaz calls her “my daughter”. In that moment, the labels she came in to Bethlehem under, “poor, foreigner, & enemy” have been erased with two kind words and lavish generosity.


She is given a new glimmer of hope in how this man of standing is seeing her.  And as his riches are easing her poverty.


In God’s world, we are all like Ruth. We start out our journey as poor foreigners and enemies of God. {Colossians 1:21} And we need someone to rescue us from destruction. Jesus is our Boaz. Our Redeemer.


Here we are on Good Friday. The day Christ surrendered his body to be the atonement for our sin, that we might be adopted into the family of God, saved out of our poverty, and instead of enemies, called friends of God. And as if that weren’t enough . . .


Along with God’s amazing love, He’s lavishly, generously, abundantly given us all things.

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Romans 8:32

I know this day is one of remembering sorrow, but if you are like me, you would prefer to celebrate early. {Christmas anyone?}

(if you are viewing this in email, please click on the title of this post for the video: Friend of God by Phillips Craig and Dean)

don't miss a thing
☞   SIGN UP TO receive THE LATEST news and updates  β˜œ
Thank you for subscribing!
By Kathy Schwanke 30 Jan, 2024
Our Human Story
By Kathy Schwanke 24 Dec, 2023
To conceive means "to seize; to take hold of"
By Kathy Schwanke 27 Sep, 2023
When the lights go out, we hear better and we grow closer.
Share by: