“May I Continue To Find Favor In Your Eyes, My Lord”

So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”

At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”

Boaz replied, “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.”

“May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.”

Ruth 2:8-13

Why should we show kindness? For those who follow Jesus, the answer is clear: To show the tender mercy and kindness of God.

There was one Israelite who showed Ruth grace and spoke to her heart. He allowed her to glean in his fields, but more than simple charity, he showed her by his compassion the tender mercy of God, the One under whose wings she could take refuge, She became Boaz’s bridge, part of the family of God, and one in a line of ancestors that led to Jesus, who brought salvation to the world.

We never know what one act of kindness, done in Jesus’s name, will do.

It’s never too soon to be kind.

Our Daily Bread – January 10, 2017