Deciding to be a Blessing

We make our decisions, then our decisions make us.

Here is a picture of a young mother, Rei and her infant son, Domenic. They look happy in this picture, but their story turned out to be a tragedy. Let me tell you a little bit about them.

Rei came to Canada from Japan at the age of nineteen on a visitor’s visa. She briefly attended Mount Royal College in Calgary. Ultimately, her visa expired, but she stayed on in Calgary, where she ended up living with a boyfriend. A year and a half ago, Rei and her boyfriend gave birth to this beautiful little baby boy, whom they named Domenic.

Unfortunately however, their relationship deteriorated and Rei’s boyfriend became abusive. Finding herself pregnant again, Rei left her boyfriend and went to live in a shelter for battered women. She lied to the shelter administrators about her visa, claiming that she now had landed immigrant status. In February of this year, Rei gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Gemini.

The rigors and responsibility of caring for two young children as a single mother proved too much for Rei to handle. She loved to party and she frequently stayed out all night, leaving the two babies alone and unattended in her apartment with nothing more than a bottle.

Soon, Rei met a new boyfriend and began to spend a lot of time with him. This past May, she went out on an extended binge, and left her babies alone. She was gone for ten days. She told her boyfriend that a babysitter was watching the kids, but that wasn’t true – they were alone. Sometime during that ten days in that empty apartment, both Domenic and his sister Gemini died of dehydration and starvation.

When Rei finally returned, she took Gemini’s body, wrapped it in a plastic garbage bag and threw it in a dumpster. She held Domenic’s lifeless body for awhile, then put it down and went back to party with her boyfriend. Three weeks later, the landlord came to collect the rent, entered Rei’s apartment, was overwhelmed by a sickening odour of decay, and discovered Domenic’s decomposed body. Gemini’s body was never recovered. Rei was arrested and is charged with two counts of manslaughter. She may be facing life in prison.

We make our decisions, then our decisions make us. This young woman decided that her own pleasure was more important to her than the lives of her two precious children. And now, she has a lifetime to ponder that choice.

We often talk about Christianity as being a one-time decision that you make – a decision to put your trust in Jesus as your Saviour. We even talk in evangelistic terms of “decisions” for Christ. But in practical terms, the proof of whether or not I am a Christian is not just in being able to point back to one-time decision that I made at one point in my life; it’s revealed in the ongoing series of decisions that I make every day. So the pertinent question isn’t “What did I decide to do way back when?”, it’s…

• What am I going to do today to line up my will with God’s will?

• What am I going to do today to show that I’m on God’s side?

And this ongoing, day-by-day process includes hundreds of decisions that we make every day – big ones and small ones. It’s in these daily moments of decision that we reveal our true spiritual condition. I think this is what James had in mind when he said:

James 2:17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

We show whose side we’re on in the decisions we make every day and the actions that flow from them.

Last week, we looked at Abraham. We saw that he decided to say YES to God even though it meant a complete upheaval and disruption of his life. And because he said YES to God, his life completely changed and he had an incredible impact on history that we are still feeling today, 4,000 years later. So we learned that, when we sense God speaking to us, whispering in our ear, prompting us, telling us to do something, we should say YES.

Now today, we’re going to look at another Bible character who also came to a key moment of decision in her life. She stood at a turning point, at a crossroads in her own personal story. She had two alternatives and she could have chosen either one of them and had valid reasons for doing so. Her name is Ruth and her story is found in the OT book of Ruth. Let’s look at her story now. It’s found on page

Read Ruth 1:1-18

Let me give you a little historical background to help you understand the world in which Ruth lived.

She lived during a time we call the era of the Judges. Israel didn’t have a monarchy; there was no centralized government; Israel was just a loose collection of tribes or clans. It was a time of chronic crisis; enemies were invading every few years; there were natural disasters such as this famine that we read about, and the people’s spiritual life was at a low ebb. Every now and then a charismatic leader would come on the scene and rally the people politically and spiritually, but for the most part, it was a pretty low time for the nation.

The situation is well summed up by a verse that we find at the end of the book of Judges…

Judges 21:25 In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.

• No stable authority to provide ongoing vision and leadership

• Moral relativism; people made up their own value system

• Decisions were made on the basis of self-interest

That sounds a lot like our world, doesn’t it? This was the world in which Ruth lived.

In the passage we read, we find that Naomi and her husband Elimelech have moved out of Israel altogether and have settled in the land of Moab because of a famine. They had come from the town of Bethlehem, which means “house of bread”, but there was no bread.

While they are in Moab, their two sons, Mahlon and Killion marry two Moabite women – Ruth and Orpah. But then, Elimelech dies, and a few years later, both Mahlon and Killion die. So here are these three women – a Jewish mother in law and two Moabite daughters in law; all of them widowed and wondering what to do.

We have to remember that, in those days, becoming a widow was one of the worst things that could happen to you – especially if you did not have children to take care of you. Women had very few rights and virtually no means of supporting themselves independently. There were no social insurance programs, no welfare or unemployment, no medicare, no pensions or retirement programs. So these three women were really in dire straits. And furthermore, Naomi was a foreigner. She was an Israelite living in the land of Moab.

So she decides to return to Bethlehem in Judah – her ancestral home. Her daughters-in-law set out to go with her.

But as they are trudging along that hot dusty road that goes past the Dead Sea, Naomi has been thinking. She loves her daughters in law, she’s been thinking of what kind of future they will face in Bethlehem, and finally she says to them “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. Go back, and find another husband. There’s nothing for you in Judah. There’s no future for you there. The Lord’s hand has gone out against me. No use in your getting hurt, too.”

As the daughters-in-law reflected on what Naomi was saying, I’m sure that they had to admit it was true. As far as they could see, there really was no future for them in Judah. As Moabite widows, they would not be desirable mates. They would hardly be first in line for the next eligible bachelor. They were facing a life of grinding poverty.

So finally Orpah, says, “You’re right. I love you Naomi, but I guess I have to do what’s right for me. I just don’t think I’m cut out for a life of widowhood. I’m still fairly young, I’m still attractive. Who knows? Maybe I can find a man to marry back in Moab.” So she kisses her mother-in-law good-bye, turns around, and walks out of her life. She made her decision.

Meanwhile, Ruth is still standing there beside her mother-in-law. They watch Orpah until she is just a small speck in the distance. Then Naomi turns to Ruth and said “Look, your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her. I give you permission. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to be a martyr for me. Get a life. I won’t think any less of you for it.”

How does Ruth respond? What decision does she make? Her answer to Naomi is given to us in verse 16 in words that have rung down through the centuries as the very essence of loyalty and faithfulness and commitment.

“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 anything but death separates you and me.”

Ruth makes her choice. She says to Naomi “I’m going to stay with you because I care about you. You are important to me. I’m committed to you. And my commitment to you and my relationship with you are more important than what might be good for me.” She made her decision on the basis of how she could be a blessing to Naomi; how she could serve Naomi. She was not thinking of her own self-interests.

I remind you of the consequences of her decision here: She was willingly choosing a life of singlehood, certain poverty, and the low social status of being an immigrant, a foreigner, an alien – a stranger in a strange land - in order to be a blessing to her mother-in-law.

When they got to Bethlehem, she and Naomi had no means of livelihood, so Ruth had to go out and glean in the fields. Hopefully, she would be able to scrape together enough grain to make bread for the two of them.

Gleaning was something that poor people were allowed to do in Israel. The Law of Moses made provision for poor people to be able to go into the fields after the harvesters and gather up whatever is left.

That’s what brought her to the field of a man named Boaz, a wealthy landowner. She didn’t know it, but Boaz was a distant relative of her father-in-law. Boaz noticed her gleaning and asked his foreman whose young woman she was. He probably thought she was a servant girl, and in a way, she was.

The foreman replied, “She is the Moabitess who came back from Moab with Naomi. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”

So Boaz goes and speaks to her, and gives her

1. Permission - to glean in his field

2. Protection - he tells the men not to bother her

3. Privilege – he tells her she can drink from the jars of the workers

4. Provision – he gives her lunch and tells the workers to leave extra grain for her (v. 14-16)

Ruth is overwhelmed by this generosity. She says “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me — a foreigner?”

Boaz says to her, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

How do you go from being an anonymous immigrant widow to catching the eye of the wealthiest landowner in town, who also happens to be in a position to help you? By determining to be a blessing to others.

Ruth decided to take care of Naomi. So God determined to take care of Ruth.

Ruth did the right thing without regard for her own personal benefit and the Lord took note of her and rewarded her. God has a special place in his heart for us when we decide to be a blessing to someone else.

PSA 15 Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellow man, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the Lord, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken.

I wonder, in the multitude of decisions that we make from day to day, if we can remember this principle? How can I be a blessing to someone else? How can I add value to their life, without calculating or weighing what’s in it for me?

When we begin to think this way, make choices this way, and live this way, we’re doing God’s work, and God is pleased.

Boaz ended up marrying Ruth. (I could tell you the details of how that happened, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. Read it yourself!)

Boaz and Ruth gave birth to a son. They named him Obed. He grew up and had a son – they named him Jesse. Jesse grew up and had a son. They named him David. David became king of Israel and was the forefather of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

And that’s how Ruth – a foreign Moabite woman – came to be part of the family God used to produce the Messiah.

Do our decisions have consequences? They certainly do!

We make our decisions, then our decisions make us.