The Way Ahead


Sermon by David Strain on September 13, 2015 Ruth 2:1-23

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Now if you would take your Bibles and turn to the book of Ruth, chapter 2; the book of Ruth chapter 2. Page 222 in the pew Bibles. Before we read it together, let’s pray.

 

Our Father, we praise You that over the chatter of social media and electronic noise, with more authority than pundits and politicians, there is the truth of God that speaks in holy Scripture giving us light and life and leading us to Jesus. And as we pause now in Your presence and humble ourselves before You, we pray that You would give us the Holy Spirit to hear with clarity and dependent trust Your holy Word to bow in reverent awe before the God who speaks to us in it. Come to us and minister life-giving truth as Your Word is read and preached we pray. For Jesus’ sake, amen.

 

Ruth chapter 2. This is the inerrant Word of Almighty God:

 

“Now Naomi had a relative of her husband's, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech, whose name was Boaz. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, ‘Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.’ And she said to her, ‘Go, my daughter.’ So she set out and went and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech. And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, ‘The Lord be with you!’ And they answered, ‘The Lord bless you.’ Then Boaz said to his young man who was in charge of the reapers, ‘Whose young woman is this?’ And the servant who was in charge of the reapers answered, ‘She is the young Moabite woman, who came back with Naomi from the country of Moab. She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves after the reapers.’ So she came, and she has continued from early morning until now, except for a short rest.’

 

Then Boaz said to Ruth, ‘Now, listen, my daughter, do not go to glean in another field or leave this one, but keep close to my young women. Let your eyes be on the field that they are reaping, and go after them. Have I not charged the young men not to touch you? And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said to him, ‘Why have I found favor in your eyes, that you should take notice of me, since I am a foreigner?’ But Boaz answered her, ‘All that you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband has been fully told to me, and how you left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before. The Lord repay you for what you have done, and a full reward be given you by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!’ Then she said, ‘I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, for you have comforted me and spoken kindly to your servant, though I am not one of your servants.’

 

And at mealtime Boaz said to her, ‘Come here and eat some bread and dip your morsel in the wine.’ So she sat beside the reapers, and he passed to her roasted grain. And she ate until she was satisfied, and she had some left over. When she rose to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, saying, ‘Let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her. And also pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.’

 

So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. And she took it up and went into the city. Her mother-in-law saw what she had gleaned. She also brought out and gave her what food she had left over after being satisfied. And her mother-in-law said to her, ‘Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.’ So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, ‘The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz.’ And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, ‘May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!’ Naomi also said to her, ‘The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.’ And Ruth the Moabite said, ‘Besides, he said to me, ‘You shall keep close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’’ And Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, ‘It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted.’ So she kept close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests. And she lived with her mother-in-law.”

 

Amen, and thanks be to God who has spoken to us in His holy, inerrant Word.

 

Who is the Main Character?

I wonder who you would say the main character of the book of Ruth is. That’s really a vital question to answer correctly if we’re going to understand its message. Who’s the main character? Naomi, perhaps? She certainly seems to take central stage in the opening chapter at least. Or Ruth? Very quickly the storyline begins to swirl around Ruth, doesn’t it? Or maybe you would suggest Boaz? He’s been introduced to us here in chapter 2 for the first time and he will be the one by whose agency all the tensions of the story are going to be resolved. Who would you say the main character of the book of Ruth is? Not Naomi, not Ruth, not Boaz.

 

Actually, the main character of the book of Ruth is the only person who has no direct dialogue dedicated to Him; He never speaks. In fact, He stays in the background throughout, doesn’t He? The main character of the book of Ruth is the Lord God Almighty Himself. And the author of Ruth points us to Him sometimes by sly humor and by subtle hints over and over and over again in the narrative. If we read it as a romance we will miss Ruth’s major point. If we read it as a morality tale, cautioning us about good and bad behavior and their consequences, we will fundamentally misconstrue its message. As we follow the fate of Naomi and Ruth, the story is artfully designed subtly and obliquely to trace for us the handiwork of the Lord Himself so that as you learn to see God at work in the lives of this broken household, you might also learn to see Him at work in your own life as well. The author of Ruth wants us to see Him in the ordinary details, upholding and governing all His creatures and all their actions, trace the workmanship of God in the mundane and even apparently random details of the story, because it’s precisely there in those very same details that we will find His fingerprints in our own lives. A major lesson of the book of Ruth is that God is not just the main character of the storyline before us; He is the main character of your life. Your life, no less than the book of Ruth, is all about Him. “For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” You are for Him.

 

I. The Providence of God

 

So God is the main character in the book of Ruth, and as we turn our attention to Ruth chapter 2 we’re going to see three lessons in particular about God’s ways and works. The first of them you’ll find in verses 1 to 3 if you’ll look there please where we are taught, once again – this is going to be a repeat theme in the book of Ruth – we are taught once again about the providence of God; the providence of God. Look at verses 1 to 3. Things have gone terribly wrong for this family. Her husband, Naomi’s husband and her two sons are dead in Moab. She’s left them behind in a Moabite graveyard. Her daughter-in-law, Orpah, has deserted her and turned back to her pagan ways in the land of Moab. And now Naomi and her other daughter-in-law, Ruth, are destitute and extremely vulnerable. And while Ruth certainly responds to the sufferings and losses of their situation in faith, we saw that at the end of chapter 1, she responds to this crisis of suffering by fleeing to the Lord and trusting in Him. She is converted and comes to trust in the God of Israel. That was Ruth’s response. Nevertheless, Naomi, for her part, is filled with bitterness. She’s filled with bitterness.

 

And yet as we also saw last time in the last verse of chapter 1, and as we’ll see here in the first verse of chapter 2, there are wonderful notes of hope sounding above the minor chords of this little family’s suffering. Can you see them? The first in chapter 1 verse 22 – they return to Bethlehem, “at the beginning of the barley harvest.” This second in chapter 2 verse 1 – “Naomi has a relative of her husband’s, a worthy man of the clan of Elimelech.” The first tells us that the two bedraggled, forlorn women arrive home sometime in mid to late April after the rainy season has ended, food is plentiful, times are good in Judah, the famine is over, God has visited them in mercy. The famine, you will recall, was a mark of divine rebuke. It was the covenant curse for Israel’s waywardness and rebellion and sin in the time of the judges where the book of Ruth’s action takes place. But now that famine is over and there seems to be a spiritual awakening going on among the people. There’s evidence of that, isn’t there? If you look at verse 4, notice the remarkable exchanges between Boaz and his hired workers in the field. “The Lord be with you,” he says. “The Lord bless you,” they respond. The normal greeting, “Shalom,” I guess our equivalent of, “Hello, how are you doing?” That’s not what they say. They’re responding and echoing actually the words of the Aaronic blessing from Numbers chapter 6. These are men with calluses on their hands; rough, working men out in their fields quoting Scripture to each other in the ordinary business of a day’s labor. The beginning of the barley harvest seems to signal the beginning of spiritual vitality in the life of God’s people at this point in their story. There’s a hopeful note. That’s the first hopeful note as Naomi and Ruth finally return home to Bethlehem.

 

The second note tells us that although Naomi can’t see a way of supplying a husband for Ruth – you remember her words to her daughters-in-law as they set out from Moab – “Turn back, my daughters,” she said. “Why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands?” Although Naomi can see no way of supplying a husband for Ruth, the narrator certainly can. As it turns out, he tells us there is one who stands in the legal position to be able to fulfill the obligations of the levirate laws that shape the community’s life in such circumstances as these. There is a near relative who can replace Ruth’s dead husband and carry on the family line and preserve the family’s allotment in the land. That’s what the narrator is hinting at here. We’re being set up by the author. The ball is on the tee and we’re left to wait for the downswing. We can see what neither Naomi nor Ruth know quite yet. Naomi had said, “I went away full and the Lord has brought me back empty.” That was her complaint. But we know now that the last verse of chapter 1 and the first of chapter 2, that the means to fill her emptiness to overflowing are already in place in the marvelous providence of God. Now the book of Ruth is a master class of Hebrew storytelling, which means having shown us those hopeful indicators, the narrator them presses pause and sort of leaves us hanging to build some anticipation waiting for the plot to develop. Before we discover just how the abundance of grain and this intriguing figure Boaz will intersect for good in the lives of Naomi and Ruth, he has a knowing smile already playing on his face as he hints to us about what is to come. “God is at work,” he’s saying. “Just wait and see. Just wait and see.”

 

And then as the stage is now at last carefully set, the dialogue begins. Look at it. Ruth asks permission of her mother-in-law to go and glean in the fields. “Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain after him in whose sight I shall find favor.” She’s availing herself of the provisions of Deuteronomy 24:19. “When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it. It shall be for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. Therefore, I command you to do this.” God has rescued and redeemed Israel from their own bondage where no one made provision for them in their poverty and misery. And the Lord God had mercy upon them and delivered them and showered grace and provided for them and gave them bread. And so He says to them, “Having received My mercy, now you also, people of God, show mercy and make provision for the poor and the needy and the foreigner and the fatherless and the widow. Make provision for someone exactly like Ruth.” And so she makes use of those legal rights that were given to her by the law of God.

 

And yet she also clearly knows that her heritage, she’s a Moabitess, marks her as a particularly unwelcome visitor in Bethlehem. So whatever the law says, if she’s going to find a place to glean that day it will be because of the unusual generosity and kindness of the harvesters. Deuteronomy 24 is the place that makes provision for the poor, for someone like Ruth to come and glean. The chapter immediately prior, Deuteronomy 23 at verse 3, is the place that says that Moabites are to be excluded from the congregation of Israel up to ten generations. And Ruth is caught precisely on the horns of that very dilemma. She knows she has technically the legal right to clean but she also knows she is an outcast. She is a stranger and an alien within Israel’s gates. Will she be allowed to glean?

 

Naomi gives her permission nevertheless and so in verse 3, “She set out and went to glean in the fields after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, of the clan of Elimelech.” Did you hear that? You can almost see the sly, knowing wink that the author throws our way as we read verse 3, can’t you? She just happened to come to the part of the communal field that belonged to Boaz, the very man who is in a position to change their lives forever. Actually, the Hebrew of the passage is particularly emphatic as it highlights the apparent coincidence. It says something like, “The chance that chanced upon her was that she came to glean in Boaz’s field.” “The happenstance that happened to her – what a stroke of luck!” That’s what the author is saying. Think for a moment about the chain of circumstances that all had to line up in order for this coincidence to occur. Ruth and Naomi have to arrive at the right time for the barley harvest. Ruth had to find the field of Boaz. And look at verse 4. While Ruth is busy working in the field, who should happen to stop by that day but Boaz himself! The timing of this is breathtaking. And it is set, do you see, in deliberate contrast to the commentary that Naomi provided on the sovereignty of God at the end of the previous chapter. You remember how Naomi thought about the ways of God and how He has dealt with them in His providence. In the bitterness of her grief, to Naomi, God is all sovereignty but no goodness, all power but no mercy. He is, she seems to say, arbitrary and unjust in His dealings with her. That’s how she reads things. But here is chapter 2 opens, we get to see things as they really are, not as Naomi understands them; as they really are. God is at work in the details of their lives for good.

 

There was a mathematician and a meteorologist named Edward Lorenz who worked on the development of computer models that would map and predict weather patterns. He made a major contribution to the field of chaos theory when he discovered that when he ran his data with tiny, inconsequential variations in the initial stages of weather development it produce dramatically different results than when he ran the same data without those variations. When he rounded out the numbers and discarded the miniscule, statistically insignificant variables, the results at the end, quite unexpectedly, varied remarkably. The tiny, seemingly inconsequential data points created factors that led further down the chain of variables as the weather model played out to massive differences in weather outcomes. Lorenz went on to illustrate his point by coining the now metaphor of the butterfly flapping its wings creating miniscule fluctuations in atmospheric conditions. And then weeks later, those tiny variables created by the butterfly’s wings, contribute to the conditions out of which hurricanes are born. His point is this – if I might boil it down to a bumper sticker slogan this great chaos theory discovery; this is about the best I can understand it – the tiniest things sometimes have seismic implications. The tiniest things sometimes have seismic implications.

 

That’s precisely the lesson at this part of the chapter, isn’t it? The seemingly random decision to glean in this particular field at this particular day at this particular time will prove to have a long-term significance for the future welfare of Naomi and Ruth that neither could ever have anticipated because God is sovereign and He works all things according to the counsel of His own will to the praise of His glorious grace. Here’s the great adventure of the Christian life. There are no insignificant details. There are no throw-away moments. We know our times are in God’s hands. We know that in God’s book were written every one of our days ordained for us before as yet one of them has come to be. We know God is working His purposes out as year succeeds to year. And so we know that seemingly random things, even the happenstances that happen to us, may prove to have a significance for the glory of God and for the good of His people we never could have imagined.

 

That is a precious truth full of comfort, perhaps especially when we struggle with questions of guidance as Christians often do. We try to anticipate what’s going to happen next. I think that’s partly why we love stories like the book of Ruth because the narrator’s always hinting at what’s coming next. We don’t have that privilege in our lives for the most part, do we? We worry about tomorrow. We are unsure what we need to do next. We plan and we strategize, but the fact is the future is out of our control. And so sometimes we stress and we fret about how to be prepared. We often don’t know what to do for the best; we don’t know how we’re going to make ends meet. And it’s exactly there that Ruth’s example is so useful. She and Naomi, they don’t know how to make ends meet. They have no long-term survival plan. They’ve come back to the land, that’s for sure, but things are not really any better here than they were in Moab; at least not for them, not yet. But Ruth the new believer, she does the next thing. She can’t see a year down the line; she can’t even see tomorrow. What she does is follow the pattern laid out in the Word of God for the destitute widow, for the sojourner in the land. She has no access to extra revelation to tell her about tomorrow and the day after and the day after that so she follows the course the Scriptures indicate. She does the next thing that she knows to do in faithful obedience to the clear precepts of the Word of God. And the sovereign God, into whose hands she has entrusted her life, overrules and guides her steps.

 

That’s the secret, you know, of Christian contentment. You don’t need to know about tomorrow; you need to know how God would have you live today. You need to attend to the clear teaching and guidance of the Scriptures. Study the glory of God in the good of others. Do your duty today and trust the whole weight of tomorrow into the hands of God who governs all things in sovereign grace for the good of those who love Him. It was living in precisely that stance of dependent trust that enabled the apostle Paul to say, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:11-13. That was Ruth’s stance too, it seems. Trust the providence of God for tomorrow and do the next thing in quiet faith today. We learn here about the providence of God – utterly sure, utterly dependable, upon whom you can rely.

 

II. The Provision of God

 

Then secondly and more briefly we learn about the provision of God. Look at 4 to 17. Boaz arrives in verse 4 in his field; he greets his men. He’s described in verse 1 as, “a worthy man.” That’s not a great translation you know. The same description is used, for example, of Gideon in Judges chapter 6 and verse 12. Gideon there, that phrase is translated, “a mighty man of valor, a warrior.” Boaz, however, unlike Gideon is not depicted here in the book of Ruth as a hero because of his military skill. Neither is it, as it’s sometimes translated that he is “a man of standing and honor” merely. Boaz is a great man supremely because of his character. He shows up for work in verse 4 and the first words on his lips, the first words recorded of Boaz in Holy Scripture invoke the name and blessing of Almighty God. Here is a hero indeed, worthy of our emulation. And as he talks with his foremen there is a young woman in the field laboring among the other women, following behind the reapers that he has not seen before. And he inquires after her. “She is the Moabitess everyone’s been talking about,” he learns. “The one who came back with Naomi. She asked to glean in the field,” the foreman says. “I gave her permission and she hasn’t stopped working since the morning. She’s been at it all day.” Apparently Ruth, no less than Boaz, is a person of character and Boaz is clearly impressed.

 

Verses 8 and 9 he calls her over, tells her that she needn’t glean in any other field but his; she should not be wary of getting close in behind his laborers. He will ensure her safety. In fact, she should even feel free to drink from the water the young men had drawn for Boaz’s own workers without any restriction. He’s treating her as though she were a member of his household. And later that evening at dinner Boaz includes Ruth among his laborers in the evening meal. And once she’s out of earshot – look at verse 15 – he gives careful instructions. “Let her glean even among the sheaves and do not reproach her, and pull out some from the bundles for her and leave it for her to glean and do not rebuke her.” There’s the beginnings of a positive conspiracy to provide more for her than she could possibly gather otherwise.

 

And if you’ll look at the exchange in verses 10 to 13 you’ll see the key to understanding the significance of all of that. What’s really going on? Why is Boaz doing all of this? Well there’s more here than Boaz simply trying to impress a pretty girl. In verse 10, Ruth is overcome, isn’t she, at the kindness she’s been shown. Notice her reaction. She prostrates herself before Boaz and cries out, “Why have I found favor in your eyes that you should take notice of me since I am a foreigner?” She had set out that morning, no doubt, with some slim hope that maybe she might be allowed to glean around the edges of someone’s field, here and there, and eek out barely enough to scrape by for the day. She never thought to be treated with this kind of kindness and consideration. And Boaz tells her why he’s been so generous. He’s heard about her commitment to her mother-in-law, he’s heard about how she’s left everything to come and live in a land that is now her own. And then he pronounces his benediction, “The Lord repay you for what you’ve done and a full reward be given you by the Lord God of Israel under whose wings you have come to take refuge.” She’s come to take refuge under the wings of the Almighty. She’s placed all her hope, all her trust in God. She’s ventured everything, staked her entire future and her destiny upon God and His grace. And Boaz here, you see, resolves not simply to speak blessing but to be a blessing, not merely to be the spokesman of covenant mercy as he pronounces his benediction but himself to be the agent of it in her life.

 

And so when the day is done, verse 17, we find out that Ruth has gathered an ephah of barley, barely enough to carry. She comes staggering home after her first day gleaning to the utter amazement of her mother-in-law, far beyond Ruth’s hopes and expectations, and contrary all together to Naomi’s bitter view of God. The Lord has provided more, extravagantly more than they needed. Now Boaz, this man of godly character, as we’ll see with growing clarity as the story develops, is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s true at this moment in the story as much as anywhere else. When we come like Ruth to take refuge under the wings of the Almighty, the greater than Boaz does more than simply speak empty benedictions to us. He is Himself the one by whom more grace flows to us than we have need. That’s what happened to Ruth with Boaz. That’s what happens more wonderfully and fully to us with the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

In Matthew 14, you remember that story, there are five thousand people gathered to hear Jesus preach and they grow hungry and there’s only five loaves and two fishes to feed them. Jesus doesn’t turn the needy away; He multiplies what is available and He meets their need. He fills them. The same God who made provision for the orphans and the widows and the sojourners to glean in Israel’s fields has made provision for Ruth and made provision for your soul in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. No one ever came in faith to Jesus empty and went away empty still. No one ever came to Jesus in faith empty and left Him empty still. In fact, the lesson of Ruth’s ephah of grain is the same lesson as Jesus’ twelve baskets of leftovers after He multiplied the loaves and the fishes to feed the five thousand – not just that He meets your need; He provides more than your need. There’s more grace than you can comprehend in Jesus Christ. Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. There is super-abounding provision for you in the God of mercy and grace in Jesus Christ.

 

Some of you live in fear as you face tomorrow because deep down you’re not sure Jesus Christ is really up to the task of supplying your deepest heart needs. Some of you aren’t really sure if you can trust Christ to provide. As Ruth staggered home under the enormous weight of barley I’m sure she would tell you, perhaps through grunts of exertion, that He can and He will. If, with Ruth, you have come to take refuge under the wings of the Almighty, He can and He will. There is more grace in Him than need in you and you will never ever exhaust the provision of God.

 

The providence of God, the provision of God, then finally the pursuit of God. Look at verses 18 to 23. As Ruth staggers home and you see Naomi’s eyes get big – “Where did you glean today?” she says. “In whose field? Blessed is the man who’s shown you favor.” She’s got a backslidden, bitter heart and she’s altogether unprepared for this kind of kindness. And when Ruth tells her it was Boaz’s field there’s a calculating light that begins to appear in her mother-in-law’s eyes and the beginnings of a plan start to take shape. Verse 20, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead! The man is a close relative of ours. He’s one of our kinsmen redeemers.” The word is, “goel,” someone who can fulfill the stipulations of the levirate laws, a close relative who can fill the room and be a substitute for the dead husband and prolong the family line and preserve the family lands. “Keep gleaning in his fields, Ruth. Let’s see where this goes,” says Naomi. She thinks to play matchmaker, doesn’t she? All of a sudden she has a wonderful plan for Ruth’s life, but as she sets out to pursue a romance between her daughter-in-law and her kinsman redeemer, Boaz, did you see that all the while God is the one who has been pursuing Naomi’s heart? God has been pursuing Naomi’s heart.

 

Did you catch the tone of verse 20? When last we heard Naomi speak back in chapter 1, 20 and 21, she was full of bitterness. The Lord, she says, has made her very bitter. He’s brought her home empty. “He’s responsible for the calamity of my life!” But now, suddenly, she sees things quite differently. “The kindness of the Lord,” she says, “has not deserted the living or the dead!” Now she sees at last the hand of God at work in grace. At last she sees kindness where before all she saw was calamity. Naomi sets out to make Ruth win Boaz’s heart, but behind it all there’s the mercy of God who has set out to win back Naomi’s heart for Himself. Thomas Watson, the great Puritan, once said that “Grace dissolves and liquefies the soul, causing a spiritual thaw.” Classic Puritan statement. “Grace dissolves and liquefies the soul, causing a spiritual thaw.” That’s precisely what is happening in Naomi’s heart here at last. There’s a spiritual thaw as the warmth of the divine hesed, the grace and love and kindness of God begin to seep through her sorrow and melt her heart. The great seeker, the great pursuer of the affection and devotion of your heart is God Himself. Jesus said in John 4, “The Father is seeking true worshipers.” He is in hot pursuit of your heart. He’s in hot pursuit of your heart.

 

Some of you have drifted far away. Some of you may even have allowed some bitterness to creep in and poison your trust in Jesus. But the Lord, who has not stopped showing kindness to the living and the dead, He wants your heart for Himself and He is working with you, speaking to you, calling you in His Word even now tonight to come back to Him who loves you and have provisions for you in His grace beyond any you could imagine or hope for. He wants to affect a spiritual thaw in your heart. He is pursuing you in grace. I wonder how you’ll answer His overtures and offers of mercy. The providence of God – you know you can trust His sovereignty; you can trust Him. The provision of God – there is abundant grace for you in Jesus. And the pursuit of God – He wants your heart for Himself. Won’t you come back to Him? Let’s pray.

 

Father, thank You for Your grace and for Your mercy. We pray that You would enable us as we hear You call to us to trust You, to put our fears to death, and cling to Your providence and provision. Thank You that even when we wander away You pursue us. Help us to come back and to surrender our hearts anew to You. For Jesus’ sake we pray, amen.

 

 

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