Praying God’s Will
Praying God’s Will
Ruth 4:11
Then all the people who were at the gate and the elders said, “We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem.”
There’s that word again—Bethlehem. A name you won’t read of in Herodotus’ Histories. A name you won’t read of in Plutarch’s Lives. A name you won’t find etched in stone or iron in archeological digs. A name you won’t hear spoken by pioneers of Western Thought like Pythagoras and Plato and Aristotle. A name you won’t find explicated in the writings of Confucious or in the Buddhist’s Tripitaka or in the Babylonian epics. A name that won’t be chronicled among the greatest cities in World History, next to Athens, Alexandria, Rome, and Carthage. A town with no distinguishing geologic or topographical feature that would make it renowned. A land with no towering Victorian Falls and no Everest Mountain and no Caribbean resort and no Amazonian ziggurat and no Grand Canyon at the heart of it. Oh, but Bethlehem is the very heartland of history—the fertile crescent of civilization—the House of Bread for all weary wanderers who are poor enough and hungry enough and desirous enough to draw near.
“We are witnesses!”, Boaz’s neighbors proclaim. Yes, friend, and we are, too. Witnesses of far more mystery and majesty than even these onlookers were given access to. “May the LORD make Ruth like Rachel and Leah and build Israel’s house!”, they pray in the unity of the Spirit, according to His sovereign will. Yet they have no idea how the LORD will answer that prayer from generation to generation, even down to this day, thousands of years later. They can’t begin to imagine the manifold prophecies that will be fulfilled over the coming centuries through the Lord’s infinite answer to their immediate plea. “May you be renowned in Bethlehem!”, they prophecy together. Oh, yes, and it is precisely in this little town of Bethlehem where the most superlative and renowned Son of Ruth’s posterity will ascend in prominence forevermore.
What a tremendous, invaluable blessing we possess through hindsight, friend. And what a reminder of God’s ability to answer our prayers, even if those answers, like the mustard seed of Christ’s parable, take ages to form.