Seems like the unexpected way is God's way.
"Now Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she was left with her two sons. They married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth." Ruth 1:3-4
Ruth was a Moabite woman.
Think about it. God warned Israel not to marry into the foreign nations they would live among for fear they'd adopt their gods. But Ruth arises from a people separated from God's people, a people hostile to God's people (Remember fat King Eglon?), a people who are descendents of Lot's incestuous relationship with his older daughter. Can you think of anything more repugnant? Yet, these are the people that, through Ruth, demonstrate what true love and faithfulness is. God always seems to rely on the unexpected. Expect it.
Ruth is totally devoted to her mother-in-law and that famous verse used in weddings ("Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.") isn't about a love between a man and a woman. It's about something purer still - a love that's not requited by the pleasures of sex and intimacy, a love at whose heart is the true concern for the well-being of another.
And Ruth is a Moabite woman.
God's people aren't restricted to the chosen. His people are those who share His heart. Not only is this Moabite woman a symbol of love, she is part of the lineage of Christ and so a part of the ultimate expression of God's love for all mankind. How appropriate. And, yet, at the same time, so unexpected. God goes outside the circle of his chosen to choose those who truly know Him.
What does this say to us now? What surprises await us? Where do His people arise nowadays? Where do you expect them to come from...think about that and then think again. His people will and have and do arise from where we least expect them and when we least expect them.
Do we draw our circle of believers too narrow?
Lord knows.
My post last year on this date.
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