A field of dreams...

God writes the best stories...

Reading in Ruth 2 this morning... just amazed at how God can be given any scene, any situation and write the most beautiful love story ever told!  

It would be one thing if He owned the actors/actresses and barked out orders and demands but He doesn't... He pursues them with His pure love and guides them most times with His quiet whisper... every once in a while you might hear His audible voice but mostly He tugs at the heart... almost like invisible strings of a marionette.  His hand leads, His hand guides and He tells the most amazing stories with our lives right there in His hands.  

As we meet Ruth... her world is falling apart.  Her husband has died... her father in law and brother in law, too.  Things weren't the same then.  Her options were slim.  Her husbands' family had led her to their God, the God, now her God.  She knew that was what she needed to hold on to.  Though urged to go back to her family, her people... her connection to her Heavenly Father was so much greater and she exchanged what she was with Whose she was now.  

She went with her mother in law, Naomi... to a land that was unfamiliar, unknown to her, but known by God.  She was a foreigner in the land but a daughter of God.  He never took his eye off of her.  Though the scene changed, He remained closer than ever, guiding each step she took.  

She ended up in a field... not just any field... she ended up in Boaz's field... a field that began as a source of survival but ended up a field of dreams. (If you aren't familiar with the details of this story... you will be blessed by reading Ruth and seeing God's hand at work throughout this entire story.) "And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem."  Even the best bosses I have ever known, would very rarely find themselves just wandering around in their field.  But Boaz, that day, was in the field, blessing his workers.  As he blessed, he was blessed... by his workers but mostly by God.  He sees Ruth.  Truly this field becomes a field of dreams... for both of them.

The magnificent thing about God stories is how an answer to one prayer somehow always criss-crosses and is also an answer to another prayer.  Criss-crosses... hmmm... crosses.  

Here's a picture He gave me today... If we give Him what we are bearing, He can use it, put it with what someone else is bearing and make it into an image of Hope... the Hope, the Cross... that can lead others straight to Him.  

Beautiful.... just beautiful!

(btw I'd love for you to join me on the journey through Ruth, Esther & Song of Sings with #First5)