I Want to Be Like Ruth

We sing a song at VBS with our kids. It goes…

“I want to be like Daniel, I want to be like Ruth!
I want to be like Daniel, I want to be like Ruth!
For Ruth she was so good and kind,
And Daniel was a mighty man….
I want to be like Daniel, I want to be like Ruth!”

It’s a simple song that the kids sing in parts, but more than that, it is a song that teaches them, and us, to honor the characteristics of Bible people.

I like Bible people. I will admit that I have a tendency to put them on a pedestal or make them more “holy” than they might have been. But there is a danger in that. You see, the people in the Bible were not meant to simply be examples of how to get it right. It is their ability to struggle through life, the same kind of life and struggles that we all deal with, that teach us how to best walk with God. The Bible does not present these people as perfect. The Bible shows us how they struggle and how they fail, as well as how they succeed. It is in that struggle that I often find myself.

The story of Ruth has a lot of layers. There is the story of Naomi, a woman who followed her husband out of the Promised Land and away from God. She suffered grief and loss in her journey away from God, but there was also blessing. A blessing that gave her Ruth and led her back home.

There is also the story of Boaz. This is a story of how a man can live out the character of Jesus. Boaz is the “kinsman-redeemer” in the story. The one who brings Ruth into the people of God and makes her a part of the family of God’s people.

There is the story of lineage and the backstory of a king who followed God with his whole heart. A lineage that would lead to a Savior for mankind and hope for eternity with God.

There is also the story of Ruth. A foreigner who makes a decision to become a part of God’s people. Ruth starts out the story in Moab, a place that has long been hostile to God’s people. She gave herself first to marriage with Naomi’s son. That son died and Ruth was now faced with a choice. Continue to walk in to a relationship with God, or turn back and live in the world she had grown up in. Ruth decides to follow Naomi and live with the people of God. The choice was not easy, but it was beautiful. And Ruth new exactly what it meant.

Ruth 1:16-17 says,” But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”

The words are not random, the commitment is not shallow. Ruth is walking away from her people and the world that she knows. She is willing to go wherever God may lead her and dwell in a land of God’s choosing. Ruth will invest in the lives of God’s family and she will remain faithful until death.

Ruth teaches us what it means to surrender. To give all to follow God. That little song we sing for children is more real to me now than it has ever been. “I want to be like Ruth!”