Hopes and Plans
Jeremiah 29:11 says “For I know the hopes and plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “Plans for good and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.”
Have you ever given up hope? Have you ever been so low you needed a ladder to climb up to the point of despair?
In the book of Ruth, we find Naomi, a person who had given up hope. She and her husband left Bethlehem during a severe drought and moved to Moab, the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in modern-day Jordan running along the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. In ancient times, it was home to the kingdom of the Moabites, a people often in conflict with their Israelite neighbors to the west. During her ten years in this foreign land, Naomi’s sons married Moabite women. Her husband and her sons died and Naomi was left bereft. She became so bitter that she said, “Call me Mara, for I am bitter.”
Naomi thought there was no hope for her or her daughters-in-law, but Ruth held fast to her faith, the faith not of her fathers, but the faith of Naomi’s fathers. God directed Naomi’s and Ruth’s paths back to Bethlehem and into the field of Boaz, a near kinsman of Naomi’s husband. Within a matter of weeks, Ruth had received the covering of Boaz, which was protection through marriage offered by a kinsman-redeemer. Unbeknownst to Naomi, Ruth entered the blood-line of Jesus by becoming the great-grandmother of King David.
When we trust in God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength, we begin to see our hopes and plans come to fruition. Naomi’s plans had a good outcome, not because of anything she accomplished but because of what God accomplished through Naomi and her daughter-in-law, Ruth. May God show you the hopes and plans He has for you, and may He show you how to achieve them.
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- Tagged: Carol J. Grace, Seeking Holiness
Seeking Holiness 