ODJ: Not a Weakness

September 23, 2018 

READ: Ruth 1:8-18 

May the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge, reward you fully for what you have done (2:12).

If my mother could have chosen a super-power, it would have been invisibility. Mum did things the right way every time. She didn’t want anyone to notice anything amiss. Then again, she didn’t want anyone to notice anything at all! Mum was a textbook introvert.

Due to her quiet ways, it might have appeared to some that my mother wasn’t a worshipful person. But that would’ve been totally untrue. She worshipped God with all her heart—through her faithful Bible reading each morning, through her unfailing prayers for her family, but mostly through her selfless service to others. She never looked for attention or praise, and she couldn’t wait to be with Jesus. She fully lived out her faith with the personality God gave her.

God often chooses the quiet, unassuming types to fulfil His plans. Ruth may have been one of those. We never see her doing anything flashy. She never sought attention or did anything that might be construed as noisy. All we see is faithfulness and a fiercely unrelenting loyalty.

When Naomi and her two daughters-in-law were left widowed in Moab, Naomi, a Jewish woman, chose to return to Israel alone. “But Ruth clung tightly to Naomi” (Ruth 1:14). A crucial part of Ruth’s decision was spiritual: “Your God will be my God” (v.16). Ruth proceeded to live out this faith in quiet acts of service that provided for her mother-in-law (2:2-3). Ultimately, her quiet loyalty would provide for all of us: in a plot twist only the Master Storyteller could write, Ruth became an ancestor of Jesus (Matthew 1:5).

An introverted personality isn’t a weakness. Quiet or exuberant, our confidence should always reside in Jesus.

—Tim Gustafson

365-day plan: Matthew 27:1-10