Grace in the midst...

Lately I've struggle with wanting to know EXACTLY what God wants me to do. I know He wants me to do this but what if I'm not comfortable? Scared? Intimidated? I avoided prayer for a while because I knew He would tug on that string again. I've finally had to have the confrontation. I'm in a very prime time in my life with my maturity and spiritually. Its time I do something about it.

In the past month or so, in the midst of trying to stay on top of my school stuff, I've been breaking apart the book of Ruth. If you haven't read it, you really should. Its a great book! There are several things that have caught my attention as I take it verse by verse. I know this might sound like I'm writing for a literature class but this is what I've gather so far; God has grace and mercy on us in the midst of our easiest and most difficult situations. Ruth was a Moabite woman who married a man that was orginally from Bethlehem. Most moabite women were pretty much stereotyped as skanks. Ruth traveled to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, Naomi after her husband and father-in-law had died. This part gets me... Ruth was a foreigner to Bethlehem. It was probably a culture shock to her. After Naomi and Ruth got to Bethlehem, things pretty much fell in place for them. They went without a home and they were genuinely welcomed by the people in Bethlehem. Naomi, especially, was down in the dumps, she had lost two sons and her husband. It was so bad she told the people to call her Mara, which literally means bitter. She told them that God had afflicted her. Can you imagine the emotion she was going through? Even through all of this God had mercy and grace on her and Ruth. I looked up the meaning of grace and was moved by it. Grace: "the freely given, unmerited favor and love of god." Mercy: "compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence".

At all times, God shows his freely given, unmerited favor and compassionate forebearance towards us even when we have afflicted him. This is mind boggling in itself.