The story proper of the book of Ruth begins in verse 6, with Naomi in a desperate situation, overwhelmed with grief and loneliness and financially destitute. But the story also begins with a note of hope—the end of the famine. And notice how the narrator tells us about it. He doesn’t say, Naomi had heard in the fields of Moab that the famine was over. He says instead, “She had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord [YHWH] had visited His people and given them food” (v. 6).

Isn’t that lovely? God had visited His people! What a difference perspective makes! The Bible teaches that the earth belongs to God who made it, and that in God’s earth, things don’t just “happen,” be they calamities like drought or good things like rain, for the God who rules the universe sends both. He doesn’t tell us humans when He’s sending a calamity or why—He isn’t obliged to do that. He just does it. Pandemics likewise happen when God sends them and end when He determines, without His telling us why. We may speculate, but this side of eternity we will never know.

The chief character of the book of Ruth, though always behind the scenes, is God Himself. In this book, God doesn’t speak from heaven as He did earlier when He spoke to Abraham and to Moses, nor does He speak through His prophets, as He did later in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, if you read through the book of Ruth, you’ll find God’s name, Yahweh, everywhere in the book.

The event in verse 6 that opens the story is ascribed to Yahweh’s care for His people, as is the event that announces the successful completion of the story in chapter 4, the birth of Obed. Chapter 4, verse 13, says, “So Boaz took Ruth, and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord gave her conception, and she bore a son.” Yahweh gave her conception and she bore a son. This is the key event that brings the story of Ruth to its conclusion, the event that carries forward God’s great plan of redemption.

These two events, Yahweh visiting His people by giving them bread and Yahweh giving a son to Ruth, bookend the story of Ruth. Both of these events are ascribed specifically to Yahweh. They tell us that the story of Ruth is God’s story. History, it has been said, is His story, and indeed it is! All that takes place from the creation of the world to the return of Jesus is His story.

And there’s much about Yahweh between the bookends of the story. As we’ve noted, the people of the story are people in whom God has worked His grace. They’re very conscious of His hand upon their lives and His faithfulness to them, and that consciousness of God takes expression in their speech. There are sixteen mentions of God between the two bookends, and all of those come from the lips of the people of the story—all of them. Thirteen of those sixteen times, they call Him by His personal name, Yahweh, the name that expresses His covenant faithfulness. Twice He’s called “the Almighty.” Once He’s called simply “God.” But His name is always spoken by the people in the story. Nowhere, other than in the bookends themselves, does the narrator say, Yahweh did such-and-such.

If you read through the book, you’ll find that almost all of the people in the story speak of Yahweh. And often, when they mention His name, it’s to invoke His blessing on someone else. Naomi, Boaz, the reapers, the elders at the gate, and the women of Bethlehem all invoke the blessing of Yahweh upon others, in 10 separate blessings. For instance, in chapter 2, Boaz comes to the field where his reapers are harvesting barley. Verse 4 says, “And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, ‘The Lord be with you!’ And they answered, ‘The Lord bless you.’” These blessings were not mere formalities. These people knew that God’s name was not to be uttered lightly. They invoked His name because they knew Him to be their faithful God, they were conscious of His oversight in their lives, and they wanted His blessing to be upon their neighbors. The blessings are easily seen as you read through the book. This is the God of the story.

About Loving and Trusting God

Two questions for pondering: first, how robust is your personal faith and trust in God? God, in His infinite wisdom, sent Naomi a lot of trouble and anguish, which sorely tested her faith and trust in God. How would you handle serious trouble if God should send it to you? Would you still love Him and trust Him?

I ask this because accepting the hand of God can be difficult. We acknowledge, theoretically, that God has the right to send trouble upon us, if He chooses. That’s fine until trouble actually arrives. It is then that we find out the reality of our faith and trust in Him. Naomi recognized God’s hand of affliction at the end of chapter 1: “The Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity on me” (v. 21). Yet Naomi continued to trust in God. So, follow her example and reckon with who God is. And reckon with the fact that Yahweh, in His love, will do as He judges best with your life and mine.

Are you prepared to put your trust in God if and when He brings trouble upon you? Can you say with Job, “Though he slay me, I will hope in him” (Job 13:15)?

Now, of course, if you are a believer in God, He will care for you through all the troubles of life. He will be your strength, your comforter, and your shield. He will bring you through and take you when you die into His presence forever, where, as the psalmist says, there is fullness of joy. But are you willing to accept it if the path that He maps out for you in this life is a tough one?

How robust is your trust in God?

About Loving Your Neighbor

A second question: How are you doing at actively loving your neighbor? We’ve noted that the people of the book of Ruth were characterized by an unusual measure of grace and kindness toward their neighbors. We don’t know for sure why they were so caring, but it’s good to remember that these people had just lived through a famine—a time, perhaps, when they’d seen loved ones starve. It’s possible that God had taught them to love their neighbors as they suffered through the famine.

Loving God and loving our neighbor should go together. Both can and should grow through the experience of affliction. But, I ask this question about how you’re doing with loving your neighbor partly because of personal experience. Affliction can take many forms, some private, some public, and some even universal (like a pandemic). However it comes, affliction can work the opposite of love in us, particularly if it drags on. We can become self-centered, impatient, and inconsiderate. Even a little discomfort can turn us inward, make us selfish, and even give us a sense of entitlement, the opposite of loving our neighbors! Loving our neighbors usually means putting ourselves out for someone else.

So, how are you doing about loving your neighbor—your spouse, your father or mother, your children, your brothers and sisters in your family, your next-door neighbor, your coworkers, your brothers and sisters in your church?

Finally, whether or not you’re experiencing trouble, cultivate a cheerful spirit. The book of Proverbs says, “A joyful heart is good medicine” (Prov. 17:22). We’ve been looking at the heavy part of the book of Ruth. The rest of the book shows God’s wonderful blessing.

We all can get down in the weeds sometimes and lose the bigger picture of God’s unchanging, sovereign love for us. Do you remember Eeyore the donkey in Winnie the Pooh? He was the gloomy one, always down in the dumps. Do you remember his famous line? “After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday.” He’s gloomy, but he’s sticking it out nobly.

As Christians, we shouldn’t just be sticking it out. We are sinners forgiven! We’ve been brought to know God and His love. To the Christians of Philippi, the Apostle Paul said this: “Rejoice in the Lord always.” And then, to make sure they were listening, he said, “Again I will say, rejoice” (Phil. 4:4). Despite troubles, the life of a Christian is fundamentally a life of deep-seated joy and thankfulness. Let us truly rejoice that Yahweh is our God, that He loves us, and that He will never let us go.

Let us take encouragement from the magnificent words by which the apostle Paul closes his reflections on God’s work of redemption in Romans, chapter 8: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vv. 38–39).