Title Coincidence and Providence
Contents
Hymn: 189 "Breaking the Doubts of the Heart"
Meditation: For Christians who believe in God, ‘accidental’ is another ‘providence of God’. Have you ever realized and appreciated this fact?
Confession of Faith: Apostles' Creed
Text: “There was a powerful man among the relatives of Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, whose name was Boaz… ” (Ruth 2:1-7)
Word: There is an Israeli proverb that says, ‘When a father eats sour grapes, his son’s teeth ache’ (Ezekiel 18:2). This means that the father's actions directly affect the son. They understood the individual as a communal fatalism. Naomi was no exception.
Naomi said to Ruth, ‘God’s discipline is coming upon this family, so it is dangerous to entangle with us. Even if you do nothing wrong, you will be disciplined just because you are a member of this family. So go back Please sever ties with us and go back to your homes” (Ruth 1:8).
But Ruth disagreed with her mother-in-law. She confessed her mother-in-law's God as her God and took her mother-in-law to the end and came to Bethlehem, a strange land with her. In chapter 2, Ruth got permission from her mother and went out to the field and happened to come to Boaz's field (Ruth 2:3). Note the word ‘accidentally’ here. There are many fields in Bethlehem, and this place was very unfamiliar to Ruth, a Gentile. But, strangely, Ruth eventually enters Boaz's field.
The Bible speaks of this as ‘accidentally’. Is it really a coincidence? Verse 4 closes up the word ‘finish’. Ruth came to Boaz's field by chance among many fields, and met Boaz who had come out of the field “just in time.” God made Ruth’s ‘accident’ and Boaz’s ‘finish’ to meet each other in the barley field. This is the grace God bestowed on Ruth.
Nothing has happened to Ruth yet. There is still nothing in Ruth's hands. He still had to spend days struggling to avoid starvation. In such a situation, God begins to show Ruth a great deal of grace through the exquisite encounter between chance and fate.
God wants to give grace by exquisitely weaving coincidences and endings. Even though the place where I am standing is a wonderful field where we have to gather gleanings of barley, it can be a field of grace. God is a God of grace. I hope that you and I will long for God's grace.
Prayer: God, help me to remember that my life now is a field of grace. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.