Ruth 3:1 – “Good”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this verse:

¹And Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, should I not seek for you a place of rest which will be good to you?”

In my last post from chapter 2, I noted how much Ruth, Boaz, and Naomi all remind me of Jesus. Chapter 3 begins in the same vein.

Stop for a second and think about Ruth. It has been a wonderful and entirely unexpected blessing for her to have stumbled into the fields of Boaz, then to have him receive her so graciously. Although the work has been hot and tedious, her gleaning in his fields has provided barley and wheat for her and Naomi probably enough for the whole year ahead. Being a Moabite and a widow, Ruth had no reason to expect anything but poverty and deprivation in Israel. Yet she has been treated kindly and won’t have to go hungry at least for a year.

All of that is well and good. However, it does nothing to resolve the larger issues in Ruth’s life. As she looks ahead, life is still a gloomy, endless struggle to survive. She’s had to work hard for this grain and next year she’ll just have to do it again, and the next year and the next year. And she can only hope that Boaz will continue to allow her in his fields. What if something happens to him? Will his heir be so gracious?

Ruth has to feel all of these things, though, based on our text she utters not the slightest complaint. She goes on humbly, dutifully carrying the load she bears. But again, she is a real human being. She is young. She is a young woman. She had a husband once but now she sleeps alone. She once looked forward to having a family. Now she has only days of hard work ahead.

Into this lonely world steps Naomi who says to her, “My daughter, should I not seek for you a place of rest which will be good to you?” Naomi is looking out for her. Naomi wants to do her good.

Her words immediately remind me of Jesus.

Who can read those words and not hear, “Come unto Me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28)? The same Lord said back in Jer 6:16, “Stand in the way and see and ask for the old paths wherein lieth righteousness, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” “Rest unto your souls.” Our God is a God who looks down from Heaven and longs to give us rest. This word “rest” in Hebrew is a colorful word that gathers in everything we can mean when we use the word: “a resting place,” “calmness,” “freedom from troubles and anxiety,” and all those kinds of things. It is obviously closely akin to the concept of peace, and it is what God wants for us. He sees us, like Ruth, battling our way through life, “eating our bread in the sweat of our face.” He sees that all our “victories” are invariably temporary and that, like Ruth’s barley and wheat, though they may sustain us for a while, we live in a world where we can never stop fighting just to survive.

And Naomi adds, “… which will be good to you.” She longs to see Ruth in a place “which will be good for you.” I’m reminded of the Lord’s words to Israel, “Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you …” (Deut 12:28). “So that it may always go well with you …” The Lord wishes us good, and that not only to us but to “your children after you.”

This one simple verse before us reminds us that our Boaz, our Kinsman-Redeemer, is a God who longs to give us rest and longs for good things to be our portion.

I say all this to point out (again) that our God is a good God, a God who longs to do us good. His very law itself was intended for our good.

And all of this needs to be said because, in this fallen world, we are naturally inclined not to see Him in His goodness. Like the devil himself, we too easily think hard thoughts of God. We too easily assume He is harsh and demanding. Our natural bent toward legalism teaches us to see Him as cruel and judgmental and impossible to please. Every rung we climb on the ladder of righteousness only shows us He is higher yet.

But Naomi’s words would remind us that all those thoughts we naturally think toward God are an unfortunate illusion. All those hard thoughts derive not from the truth but rather from our own twisted misperceptions. The real God who lives in Heaven and who would be our God is a God of grace and kindness, a God who longs to give us rest and to do us good. Oh, yes, it is true that He punishes sin, that there is a place called hell, that He may in anger bring down horrible judgments on us. But like a genuinely loving parent, He resorts to those things only when we engage in our own self-destruction and cruelty and utter impenitence. I believe with all my heart that when He has to deal finally with those “whose names are not written in the Book of Life” and He has to “throw them into the Lake of Fire,” He will do so with tears in His eyes. That was never His intent. He would have done them good, if only they’d let Him. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, will rest in the shadow of the Almighty” (Ps 91:1).

Again, like any genuinely loving parent, our God longs to do us good. Just like Naomi’s words, He asks, “… should I not seek for you a place of rest which will be good to you?”

But having pondered all of this, may we be reminded they are Naomi’s words. They are a person’s words. And they are a godly person’s words. They are a godly person’s words as that person looks into the life of someone else. That is precisely the effect God desires to see – that having drunk deeply of grace ourselves we should in turn extend that grace to those around us. As we learn to live in the glow of our God’s love to us, I believe the unavoidable result is that we are changed to love others more. Viewing His image, “we are changed into that image, from glory to glory.” I’m not so sure the change is even a “choice” to love so much as a choice to see God and then to simply allow that love to flow through us. We are indwelt by the Spirit of Christ. If we only allow it, how cannot His great loving heart spill out of ours? Out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouths will speak. If those hearts are full of the love of Christ, how cannot our mouths spill out that same love to others?

This is a wonderful little verse to remind us what a loving God we have:

“And Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, ‘My daughter, should I not seek for you a place of rest which will be good to you?’”

But realizing they are Naomi’s words, we’re also reminded that God’s love in our hearts moves us to love others. Naomi longed to see Ruth find a “place of rest” and one that “will be good to her.”  Just like Naomi, it is good and right for all of us to be constantly looking about us desiring to do good to others, to be “watching out” for their welfare.

May the Lord give us eyes to see the needs of others, may He give us hearts to love and do what we can, and may He allow us to actually so touch the hearts of people around us that they realize there is such a thing as grace.

May the Spirit of Christ be our spirit all day every day wherever we go.