A Dozen Red Roses - Pt 6

Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. (Ruth 1:14-18 ESV).

Love is not a feeling, it is a choice. I’m not sure we often view love this way. We are raised with a fanciful imagination sweeping us off to places where we will fall helplessly in love with someone else. However, if you want to find the “happily ever after” in your life, it will be found in your choice to love. This is the story of Ruth. Clearly, love has seized her and she is powerless in its grip. When we look at the first chapter of Ruth, we see that Ruth chose to love Naomi, even when the consequences looked bleak. If Ruth turned back and left Naomi, she would have had an easier time remarrying, which was crucial to a woman’s worth in those times. She was still young. She could have really done something with her life if she had just stayed with her own people … and that is what Naomi urges her to do. But Ruth responded with the clear commitment of “wherever you go” (v. 18). Ruth was “determined”. Any lesser love would not have been enough. It took a deliberate, almost stubborn love to prove to Naomi that Ruth was serious about her commitment. Naomi was almost all the family that Ruth had left. Maybe she was not the family member that Ruth would have chosen to love, but Ruth chose to love her anyway. We have all been put on earth together for a reason, and the difficulty of love is exactly what enables it to be so powerful. When we have no choice about who to love, love becomes harder. Perhaps we need to stop waiting for a feeling of love. The fact is, when we can’t choose the people we love, we choose to love the people we have, and that is a far richer experience. And in doing so, we reflect the love of God, who chose to love us before any of us loved Him. The Apostle Peter says, “… love one another deeply” (1 Peter 1:22). This kind of love is not a noun, not an adjective, it’s a verb. It’s a very deliberate action. That is the love of our Father and the love He calls us to have for one another. Make that your commitment as a part of your observance of this Day of Love.