Finding Grace in the Details
How God's quiet provisions shine through in life's darkest moments.
While many may say that the devil is in the details, in the Bible, grace is in the details. Consider what seems like a throw-away phrase in Ruth 1. The writer of Ruth situated her life in the tumultuous period of the judges. To make matters worse, she lived with her husband and children during a famine in Bethlehem. The irony should not be lost on us–there is a famine in a city whose name meant “house of bread.”
Like the period of the judges, in which each cycle of disobedience is worse than the one before, Ruth’s life spirals downward after the famine in Bethlehem. Her husband, Elimelech, packed up Ruth and their sons, Mahlon and Chilion, so they could move to the seemingly greener pastures of Moab. Both of her sons married Moabite women, but the joy ends there. Elimelech, Mahlon, and Chilion all die in the land of Moab.
Naomi saw more heartbreak in Moab than most people see in a lifetime. She decided to return to her native Bethlehem and her daughters-in-law came with them. The childless widow begged her daughters-in-law to return to their homeland. Orpah complied and headed home. Ruth, however, pledged herself to Naomi and Naomi’s God.
This was the first moment of grace that Naomi experienced in her story. She saw the tragedy in her story and begged Ruth to return, but she wouldn’t. Naomi didn’t know it yet, but Ruth would expend blood and sweat to provide for the two of them. And it would ultimately be through Ruth that Naomi would experience joy again.
This brings us to our seeming aside which demonstrates the overwhelming grace of God. The narrator ends the opening chapter of Ruth with the observation, “And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.” The chapter began with a famine in the house of bread, but Ruth returned at the beginning of the season of plenty.
This simple phrase is a sliver of light in a story marked by hopelessness and pain. However, if you aren’t paying attention as you read Ruth, you miss it. The same principle is true in our lives. When we myopically focus on the pain and suffering in our lives, we don’t see the evidence of God’s grace at work in our lives.
As followers of Jesus, we have to train our eyes to find the areas where God is at work. This is not a question of whether or not God is being gracious to us. He is demonstrating grace in more ways than we could imagine, but we need to look for it. It may be in an answered prayer or in the kindness of a friend. We might see his grace in feeling a little better than we did yesterday or through a gentle moment with a child who seems to be going wayward.
Paul said that grace abounds all the more when sin abounds. Since sin, pain, and tragedy surround us, we can be sure that God’s grace abundant grace is bubbling up all around us. Find the evidence of God’s grace, even when times are bad. Look for where God is at work, even when he feels distant. In those moments, we will find that he is nearer than we ever could have imagined.
For Further Reading:
Ruth for You by Tony Merida
Faithful God: An Exposition of the Book of Ruth by Sinclair Ferguson