Daily Worship

Drawn in by love

October 07, 2014 0 0

Ruth 1: 11-18

"You must go back, my daughters," Naomi answered. "Why do you want to come with me? Do you think I could have sons again for you to marry? Go back home, for I am too old to get married again. Even if I thought there was still hope, and so got married tonight and had sons, would you wait until they had grown up? Would this keep you from marrying someone else? No, my daughters, you know that's impossible. The LORD has turned against me, and I feel very sorry for you." Again they started crying. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye and went back home, but Ruth held on to her. So Naomi said to her, "Ruth, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Go back home with her." But Ruth answered, "Don't ask me to leave you! Let me go with you. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and that is where I will be buried. May the LORD's worst punishment come upon me if I let anything but death separate me from you!" When Naomi saw that Ruth was determined to go with her, she said nothing more. 

‘Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.’

Loving God, many of the people we meet day by day are people we pass by and never get to know – in shops, in the street, on the bus, at the traffic lights, at work, at school.  We thank you for them, but we thank you most of all for the people we do know and those we get to know:
    -    loved ones and friends whose lives we are part of.
    -    the people who draw us in by their love and friendship and welcome, by their smile or their conversation.  
    -    the people who offer us help and companionship, and who walk with us on the road we travel.   
    -    the people who provide a place in their company and by their side where we can feel at ease.  
    -    The people who open their door and invite us in.

As we acknowledge the sense of belonging that others give to us, we ask that we might also be aware of the ways in which we can give it to others – through our words, our actions - and even through our smile.  In Jesus name, we pray.  AMEN.