So, what do I do now? I’ve found myself asking God this question often this summer. Against my own desires, I’ve landed in a season of change that has upended many parts of my life that I thought I had figured out. I’ve recently fallen out of a relationship that has defined a large part of my identity for years. It’s easy for me to feel lost and even angry with God for leading me away from something that fulfilled me. When these kinds of changes occur in our lives, it can feel impossible to trust in God’s plan for us.
Throughout all of this, I’m back in my hometown between semesters of college and seeking out different career paths for after school. As I’m sure most of my fellow twenty-year-old students can relate to, it feels like the time to figure everything out is running thin. All these new and stressful moving parts of my life have led me to turn to the Bible to seek out the answers to what is next for me.
In a stage of my life that is filled with uncertainty and question marks, how can I fall back on my faith and trust in God even when I don’t understand His timing?
God Is Leading You in the Right Direction, Even When You Can’t See It.
Throughout this post, I want to draw parallels between this idea of trusting God’s timing when we’re feeling spiritually stuck and the story of Ruth that is playing out in Grace Church’s sermon series: Plot Twist – When God Rewrites the Story. The series follows the book of Ruth and tells the story of Naomi, an Israelite, and her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth, a Moabite.
The story begins in Chapter 1 of Ruth with Naomi and her husband and two sons as they move from Bethlehem to Moab during a famine. This is significant because Moab was a long-time enemy nation of Bethlehem and was considered morally corrupt due to its origin from the incestuous relationship between Lot and his daughter. Naomi’s family moving to Moab served as a sign of faithlessness and abandonment of God. This really made me reflect on the everyday choices I make that potentially lead me away from God.
QUESTION: Do my actions align with my calling to live a life of faith and love for God?
Throughout her years in Moab, Naomi’s once full and prospering family is stripped apart as her husband and both of her sons pass away, leaving her alone with two widowed daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah (Ruth 1:3-5). Naomi, filled with grief, becomes extremely bitter with God following the loss of her family and questions His goodness (Ruth 1:20-21). I find myself empathizing with Naomi in this stage of my life, where I have lost my connection with someone that I deeply care about, for reasons that I don’t understand. It’s easy for me to feel like I’ve been forgotten by God.
Why is it that everything can go so well and then get flipped on its head in an instant? Doesn’t God want what’s best for me? Surely, I know what’s best for me, and this isn’t it.
It is what God does next with Naomi and Ruth, though, that made me realize what I’ve been doing wrong and gives me trust in God and His works in my life.
Naomi decides to return to Bethlehem, joined by Ruth, even though Naomi tells her to stay in Moab, where she has community and opportunities (Ruth 1:6-13). Ruth’s decision to follow Naomi back to Bethlehem, a land where she is considered evil and unvirtuous, is a giant leap of faith and a sign of her loyalty to Naomi and trust in God.
How can it be that Ruth, having just lost her future with her husband, was courageous enough to chase after a faith in God? It begins with her giving everything over to God. Ruth sacrificed all that she had to follow Naomi and live among the people of Bethlehem. She risked having no guarantee of ever finding a secure spouse again for marriage.
Although these sacrifices seem extreme, we too must give over our lives to God. God will take it all; our troubles, our successes, and our worries. “Trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6). It is only once we surrender ourselves to God that we can allow Him to work through us for a bigger and better purpose.
I know now that God is always working in my life, I just can’t always see it. I see God working when I allow Him to carry my burdens for me.
God Is Your Security Blanket – Fall Back on Him
Just like Ruth, I’ve realized that I have allowed things on Earth to become my security blanket. My relationships, my athletics, and my aspirations for the future are what have kept me safe and motivated. This mindset and reliance on false idols can only take you so far. Just like in the book of Ruth, there will come a time when your world will be challenged, and all that will be left is you and God. I’ve been carrying the burden of my personal challenges; challenges that are too heavy for any human to carry.
How I rely less on my own strengths and more on God’s:
- Start My Day with Surrender
- Asking God to help guide me throughout my day/week and giving my control over to Him
- Recognizing My Limits
- There are going to be moments or challenges that are out of my control. I need to remind myself that my strengths and abilities are limited, but God’s are infinite.
- Surrounding Myself with Other God-Dependent People
- I get to choose the people I surround myself with. I can use these relationships to encourage each other and remind myself of all that God has given me.
Once in Bethlehem, Ruth begins gleaning leftover grain for Boaz, who she didn’t realize was a wealthy relative of Naomi’s late husband, Elimelech (Ruth 2:2-3). This is when God starts to turn Ruth’s story around. Boaz, impressed by Ruth’s hard work and loyalty, offers her a place to stay and water to drink while she works (Ruth 2:8-9). Ruth eventually ends up marrying Boaz and is blessed by God with a son, Obed, who ends up being the grandfather of King David. This story of God’s provision over Ruth and redemption serves as a lesson about trusting in God’s plan and timing in our lives. God protects those who follow Him faithfully – He is our security blanket.
It is almost unimaginable how God transformed Ruth from a pagan Moabite to a devout follower of the Lord (who eventually ended up in the direct lineage of Jesus Christ). If He can do that, I’m confident that He can use you and me in ways that are just as powerful and meaningful.
Although we face hardships in our lives, and it can feel like we’re waiting on God, I learned that it’s important that we always fall back on our faith in God. A God that is bigger than anything we have or do on this Earth. A God that has a plan for us, even when we don’t understand what it is. It took me losing a significant relationship in my life to realize that there are areas of my life I need to dedicate to God; I’ve found a new mission for myself. I’ve decided to challenge myself to put more intention in my everyday life to grow in my faith and create meaningful connections with other followers of Christ.
A Helpful Tool to Help You Be More Intentional in Your Relationships
If you want to join me in becoming more intentional in your faith and encouraging other Christians, I recommend downloading Grace’s CARE Tool, which provides 4 practical and memorable ways to help you be more intentional in your everyday relationships.
This post was contributed to the Grace blog by Evan Kemp.
