Family lines...

There’s a beautiful story of devotion, loyalty and love in the book of Ruth. It’s the story of a daughter-in-law refusing to leave her mother-in-law’s side...

There was a famine in the land, so Elimelech took his wife and 2 sons from Bethlehem to Moab. Elimelech died, leaving Naomi to care for her sons. After Naomi’s sons died, she decided to return to Bethlehem. Surely, things would be better there!

Ruth, one of Naomi’s daughters-in-law, was a Moabite woman. She was instructed by Naomi to return to her people and her god, but she refused. Hear the love in her words,

“Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! for wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you die I will die, and there be buried. May the Lord do so and so to me, and more besides, if aught but death separates me from you!” (Ruth 1:16-17)

God honored Ruth for her humility, diligence and obedience; He restored Naomi’s hope... Ruth married Boaz, and became the mother of Obed. Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of King David... and Jesus came from the line of David...

We have no idea how our own loving actions may bless others in our family line, but God is there, intimately involved from beginning to end...