Ruth 2:8

"Then Boaz said to Ruth, "You will listen, my daughter, will you not? Do not go to glean in another field, nor go from here, but stay close by my young women" Ruth 2:8

Every time I read in the Book of Ruth, I am amazed at the provision of God. Here we have a little foreign woman who chooses to go with her Jewish mother-in-law. She had no reason to. She was a widow; her Jewish husband had died. She could have stayed with her own people. But she went to Israel, a land where she would be an outcast. But, she was going to honor her Mother-in-law and perhaps to "see the world." I suspect there was a bit of the adventurer in Ruth.

Because of Ruth's faithfulness, God provides for both women. Ruth gleans in the fields, a custom established in the law. Each farmer was to leave the outskirts of the field un-harvested in order to provide for the poor. After the field hands had left a field, the poor would invade the abandoned land, reap what was not cut, and pick up what was left behind.

But Ruth was unusual. She caught the eye of Boaz who told her to harvest right along with his own people, not to wait until she had to contend with the other poor folk. What's more, he told his harvesters to leave plenty for her and to make sure it was easy for her to gather. We know the outcome. Ruth and Boaz eventually marry and produce a son who would be in the direct lineage of David who would be the great (several times removed) grand father of Jesus.

God is in the providing business. He provides for us on a daily basis. Jesus said, "Give us this day our daily bread." He didn't encourage us to ask for our annual supply. He wanted us to have a "now" reliance upon the Father. And what were the conditions imposed upon Ruth for this daily provision? Faithfulness. That's it, pure and simple. One condition and one only, God rewarded her for her faithfulness.

And that same condition applies to us today. All He asks of us is our faithfulness. When He has that, and even then it does not need to be a perfected trait, He will supply our daily needs. I can testify to the fact that He has never let us down. We have always had our need supplied. Always. We may not have had all or any of our wants (though that was also a rarity), but we always had food to eat, a roof over our heads, and a vehicle to get us back and forth to work. Sometimes the food was humble (the food pantry comes to mind, hey, it was cheap, I'm sorry, Christians are not cheap. We are inexpensive, thank you very much. !), but it was enough to keep us going. We may not have had the finer things in life, but we had some thing many families don't have God's Love and the Love for each other.

God will honor your faithfulness as well. Try to be true to Him and He WILL be true to you. He will not fail. He cannot fail. To fail once would remove Him from the status of God. Hallelujah, Amen and Amen.