Romans 15:13 says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (NIV). Paul’s prayer is not merely that we’d know hope, but that it would ooze out of our lives and impact the lives of those around us—family members … co-workers … neighbors … people we naturally intersect with. So—how can we be carriers of hope? There’s an Old Testament story—one familiar to many of us—that tells us how … the story of Ruth.
Ruth’s name gets attached to the narrative, but the story initially centers around Naomi—her mother-in-law. Naomi and her husband Elimilech had their two boys lived in Israel until a famine hit. They had to immigrate to Moab where they planned to live until things turned around and they could return. But while in Moab, things took an unforeseen turn and Naomi’s husband died. Her two sons married Moabite girls, but the famine persisted much longer than they ever imagined … and, tragically, both of her sons died as well. So you have three widowed women … Naomi and her two daughter-in-laws, Ruth and Orpah.
In a very patriarchal society, this placed these women in a very precarious position—no male heir … no provider to generate household income … no safety net … no place of belonging, as in that world a woman’s identity was tied to her husband or father. When Naomi and Elimilech and their sons set out for Moab, this wasn’t at all the life they imagined. Naomi found herself in an unenviable, godforsaken place.
Her plan is to return to Israel, but she tells her two daughter-in-laws they should stay behind—live in Moab, find new husbands, start over. Orpah decided to do as Naomi suggests, but Ruth refused. Naomi tried to convince her of the wisdom of following in Orpah’s footsteps, but Ruth wouldn’t hear of it—in fact, Ruth shared some of the most memorable words in all of Scripture. “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me” (Ruth 1:16-17, NIV).
In the Bible, Abraham is often regarded as the original hero of hope and faith in the Old Testament. But Abraham had some things going for him that Ruth didn’t have. For one thing, he had a promise from God that was ratified by a covenant. Granted, it looked for a while like the promise wasn’t going to pan out and on another occasion like it was going to be snatched away. But Abraham clung fiercely to that to it. Also—Abraham had a wife and family, and when he did as God asked and left for this unidentified land, he could take them as well as his livestock and life’s belongings w/ him. Ruth, on the other hand, had none of this stuff—she left behind her country, her people, and her religion. She had no angelic vision … no burning bush … no still small voice. She had no assurance from God that He would watch out for her or take care of her. She is hitching her wagon to an old lady for whom life was going to be exceptionally hard and, in an ethnocentric world, she herself would undoubtedly encounter obstacles as a Moabite lady in a Jewish society. This is a burdensome choice—clearly the more difficult path.
In many ways, the boldest expression of hope in the Old Testament is the product of a penniless, childless, pagan Moabite widow. Orpah’s choice made sense. It was reasonable—move on from your tragic circumstance, press reset, and start over. But Ruth’s response is entirely unreasonable … illogical … nonsensical. She takes a completely unexpected step, and the question we’re left with is, “Why? Why would she do something irrational like this? And the answer, it seems to me, is love—not romantic love or sentimental love, but a deeper, more profound kind of love … a love that believes the universe is not so heartless a place to where a costly act done in love is not wasted and of no avail.
So they return together—this older woman and her outsider daughter-in-law—to Israel. And when Naomi shows up in Bethlehem, the town is excited. “It’s Naomi—back after all these years!” But she says, “Don’t call me Naomi (which means pleasant). Call me Mara (which means bitter). For my life has taken a bitter, harsh turn. I went away full, but I’m returning empty. And, what’s worse, it’s God’s fault. The Lord has brought great misfortune into my life.”
This is a very bleak response, but it serves a valuable purpose. For any of us that are prone to think hope is some syrupy, saccharine, pain-avoidant form of religious denial for people who lack the courage to look reality square in the eye—well, that’s not Naomi. She says in essence, “Ladies, if you think I’m going to pretend everything is OK just so you won’t have to be bothered by my pain, you’ve got another think coming. My life stinks right now. And what’s more, it’s God’s fault!” Naomi’s words are real … unvarnished … fully human. She believes—and rightly so—that God would prefer candid complaint to fake optimism. And this, as well, is also instructive. For this is the only place hope can start. Hope can’t emerge if we don’t have the courage to see and name our current reality for what it is.
But notice—Naomi’s words, while incredibly honest, weren’t totally accurate. She said she came back “empty”. But that wasn’t the case, for Ruth was with her. But in her pain and emptiness, she couldn’t notice. And we all do this. We can get so mentally caught up in our own stuff we can’t detect the available resources that are around us. We see life through our pain to where we can’t recognize the support that is within reach. I’m convinced hope often begins, not by our pain lessening or our heartache diminishing, but by seeing the pain of someone else and thinking, “I could help. I could assist. I could lend a hand.”
That’s the approach Ruth took, and at this point the focus of the story shifts from Naomi and towards her. And she also, by her actions, begins the rebirth of hope for Naomi. Now, the odds are stacked against Ruth. For when she decides to join the poor of Israel to avoid starving by gleaning the fields for leftover grain, the Bible refers to her as “Ruth the Moabite.” This is a reminder she is likely going to be the recipient of some cold-shouldering and rejection. But she somehow has reason to believe—to hope—that somebody out there will have sympathy and look upon her with favor and consideration. And the lingering question is, “Where does this kind of hope come from? Is it wishful thinking—a pie in the sky pipe dream, or the product of her personality and temperament? Or is it the product of something deeper—something more profound and penetrating?”
To get an answer to that question, it helps to understand the difference between a physical feeling and an emotion. We often think those two things are the same, but they’re not. Physical feelings have causes. If somebody asks why I’m itchy, I might say I rubbed up against some poison ivy and had an allergic reaction. No one criticizes me for the fact I itch—I just do. But emotions are different—they’re based upon how I interpret a certain action. For example, if I’m driving and the vehicle behind me starts honking incessantly at me, I’m frustrated and upset after a while. But when the driver pulls up beside me and motions that my back wheel is wobbling and looks like it’s about to come off, I’m no longer frustrated and upset. I’m appreciative and grateful. My prior emotions were based on a wrong interpretation of what was going on.
Here’s the point as it relates to the topic of hope. If hope is going to be real—if it’s going to be more than a passing emotion—it needs to be grounded. Hope has to have a reason. The apostle Peter writes, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15, NIV). If you want something really badly but don’t think there’s any shot of ever getting it, you’re not hopeful—you’re cynical or despairing. And the way we typically deal with that is by resignation—scaling back our wants and downgrading our desires. Resignation is often the way we handle life’s small hopes—I’ll never be a Major League Baseball player … or play trombone for the band Chicago … or own a 1974 Pontiac Trans Am.
But resignation is not an appropriate way to handle life’s ultimate aspirations—those transcendent things for which we hope. If we ratchet back on those desires God hardwired into us, we’ll live a life of sorrow and despair. For hope to be substantive, it must be anchored to something. As to what grounded Ruth, her famous and familiar words from chapter one highlight her anchor point for us—I’ll go where you go, your people will be my people, and your God my God. Sometimes we move past that statement much too quickly, but that is essentially Ruth’s conversion. “I’ll no longer worship the gods of my people. I’ll commit my life to your God … the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” It was this grand passion that motivated her to act. And that’s the thing about hope that sets it apart—despair quits but hope acts. Ruth acted—Let me go glean …”. She showed what it means to live by faith and not by sight.
And when Ruth acted in hope, things began to happen. A man named Boaz saw her in the field and began to ask questions—curious questions … interested questions. He observes the tenderness of her love for Naomi and marvels at her heart. One thing leads to another and eventually Ruth and Boaz marry. And since Boaz was a relative of Naomi, Ruth’s union to him assured that Naomi would be cared for as well. Things ultimately worked out for Naomi much better than she ever imagined they could. And it wasn’t because of anything she did; it was because of the abiding hope in God her Moabite daughter-in-law had.
Ruth and Boaz eventually had a baby boy they named Obed … who became the father of Jesse … who became the father of David—King David. It’s kind of ironic that the most revered and esteemed king of Israel—a people who were all about cleanliness of pedigree and bloodline purity—was one-eighth Moabite. And David, as you know, was a progenitor of Jesus—the One who came to earth to eradicate the sins of the human race and offer buoyant, irrepressible, and unquenchable hope to each and every one of us.
This world desperately needs those of us who claim to be Christ-followers to be expectant and hopeful—not people who are out of touch with reality and unwilling to confront it, but a people who, like Ruth, see the obstacles and difficulties for what they are but refuse to allow them to keep us from believing in the possibilities of the future … who give ourselves to doing what we can to maintain an unwavering confidence in a steadfast God because we’re convinced the One who’s within us is stronger than the One who’s at work in this world. Even a small group of people who are filled with hope can make a major difference in the world. People today need hope. So—cultivate hope. Nurture hope. Pursue hope. And let the God who supplies and grants hope to us do it in the lives of those we rub shoulders with.