“In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land.” Ruth 1:1
Crops weren’t growing.
Storehouses were emptied.
Leaders rose and fell one after another. They could command armies and make laws and amass riches. But they couldn’t make one thing grow from the ground. None could nourish their people.
Bethlehem (“House of Bread”) was barren.
God’s people were hungry.
One father turned his sights to nearby Moab – a wicked nation that hated God and worshipped idols. Baal worship was loud. But to Elimelech, his sons’ growling stomachs screamed louder. A father feeds his wife and children. So they sojourned: Elimelech, his sons, and his wife, Naomi.
I love the story of Ruth so much and usually skip straight to the happy parts. Ruth clinging to Naomi with sacred vows of loyalty. Boaz seeing the woman he’s already heard about working in the fields. Ruth laying at her redeemer’s feet. The beauty of baby Obed on Naomi’s lap. Happy tears. Credits roll.
But the story that ends with such fullness did not start out that way. It started with famine.
We don’t have to look far to see famine in our land today. We are a spiritually impoverished nation. We look to worldly leaders and influencers, but like the judges of Ruth, they are powerless to nourish us. We turn inward to try to help ourselves, save ourselves, love ourselves but find we are not the source of anything. There is only one who is able to feed us in famine, and not just feed us but flourish us.
We need the Bread of Life. In John 6:35 Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” The Son of God is able to nourish his children in famine. Even when all the ground underneath us shifts, he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. When it feels like nothing is growing, he is still working something mighty. He is faithful. He will never leave us. We have a Father in our time of famine. He loves and nourishes his children.
He will also deliver fruit from it. The famine that compelled Elimelech into Moab eventually delivered Ruth back to Bethlehem. Then from this ordinary Gentile woman would descend King David and eventually Christ, the Bread of Life himself.
What will today’s famine deliver in you? What will it deliver in your children and grandchildren? Keep your eyes on Christ, not on the world’s depleting storehouses. We don’t eat what they eat. We don’t look to them for nourishment. We are His. Trust that this season is for your good and his glory. He will sustain you in it.
Scripture tells us that Boaz and Ruth had a son named Obed. I wonder if little Obed ever crawled up in his grandmother Naomi’s lap and asked her to tell the story, the same story my kids and probably yours demand to hear often: “Tell me the story of my birth.”
Maybe Naomi responded, “My dear grandson, your story begins with a famine…”