At the words, “Want to go for a ride?” I leap at the chance to fuel my love of fast. Confession— the number of speeding tickets/warnings I’ve accumulated over the years just might need two hands to be counted on. Maybe. Probably. Ok, definitely. It’s not that I deliberately speed, I am just absent-minded with a lead foot.
Atop twin motorized bicycles with my daughter-in-law, we zoom full-throttle, up the curvy-swervey canyon trail. My goal? To pedal madly and use the motor sparingly. The reality?The minute I hit the steep inclines and the leg aches begin, I push the “go” tab which roars the motor to life, propelling me with exhilarating speed up the mountain. So much for a sweaty workout, but what fun!
At the top we pause to take in the breathtaking expanse below. Lush and green, the ballet of wild grasses intertwine with exuberant bursts of yellow and purples blooms.
In my wild ride to the top, mesmerized by the breath of nature, at first I didn’t notice the hard-won beauty cocooning us. As we rest on the stone wall of the valley overlook, I take in the trees surrounding us. Never of large stature in the first place, these scrubs show a fortitude I missed and a truth forgotten.
Three and a half years ago a devastating fire roared through this canyon devouring all on its way to Malibu, and the ocean below. Horrified occupants witnessed the devastation of their homes, the mountains and the valleys—charred, silent and ruined as far as the eye could see. But now, God’s healing power in nature overwhelms me as I sit in awe and remember the heart-rending destruction.
From my perch I see skeleton trees with branched arms reaching to the heavens like a plea for mercy, blackened and frozen in desperate lament. Yet this hopeless moment of despair ended not in final doom but in a bold answer from God. He regenerated this earth to the greenest of green as the resilience of His creation in nature shines forth. Refusing to die, the root of these blackened trees sprout the thick new growth of hope. Proof of God in life.
For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” Ro 1:18-20
Like the resilient tree emerging from a valley of desolation, the story of Ruth the Moabite shines hope through the darkness. She lived an ordered life—with the security of the close-knit Israelite family she married into, provision from a husband and a tight relationship with her beloved mother-in-law.
But her life of stability shattered twice in quick succession. Her brother-in-law and her husband both died and to complicate deep sorrows, her mother-in-law was a widow. This patriarchal culture devalued women so Naomi’s future well-being depended on her sons. Without them, awash in uncertainty, abject poverty loomed.
Famine pressed down but hearing rumors of God’s food provision for His people, a bitter Naomi determined to return home to Judea. She demanded her young daughter-in-laws stay with their own people and find new husbands. Orpah flew away, but Ruth refused to part with her beloved Naomi.
“Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go I will go…”
Ruth 1:16
Her fateful decision to follow Naomi and her God would change Ruth’s destiny from despair and devastation— to the hope of the faithful.
In life we deal with disappointment, betrayal, pain, illness, and death. COVID showed us our weakness and shattered our illusions of invincibility, and Russia’s greed exposed the cracks in the fragile myth of peaceful human co-existence. Ukraine, thriving and autonomous one moment, found themselves bombed and shell-shocked the next. Like flash fires in a drought, crazies will always emerge for a time until snuffed out.
And like Ruth and Naomi, how we deal with these trials shapes the person we become. Do we rail at God? Naomi did, but He is faithful and He can handle our tirades. She directed her former friends to no longer call her Naomi, meaning pleasant, but Mara meaning bitter.
Ruth showed great bravery in her walk out of all she knew— into a new life, a new land and a trust in the God of Naomi. Yet she had no idea her walk of faith would echo through the ages. Ruth the nobody, impoverished foreigner, became the wife of wealthy, Boaz, and great-grand mother of King David—and thus became rooted deep as part of the linage of Jesus.
We don’t know God’s plans for our lives and descendants, but like Ruth, our choices of faith or flight can shape generations to come.