“Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die, I will die— there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!”
If I did not know better, I would say these words are being said between two committed people in a relationship. Someone who is willing to go with another person, live where they live and die where they die, is in a loving relationship.
These verses remind me of 1 Corinthians 13. “and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends.”
Apostle Paul wrote these verses to the church in Corinth since they were fighting among themselves and not living up to the standards he expected.
Likewise, Ruth is speaking to her mother in law about her determination to stay by her side and not leave her. She is so committed to Naomi that Ruth is willing to worship Naomi’s God and forsake her gods.
What really resonates with me is how beautifully suited both passages are for wedding ceremonies. These are reminders of what love ought to be. Love is an action word which left unused ruins many things. If there is love, then following a partner in life, though inconvenient, proves the measure to which one would go to show support for the other. In good times or bad, loving someone requires patience, kindness and understanding. Is it easy to achieve these things? Not always. Personalities, occupations, family demands and opposing views get in the way. Our partners see the best of us and the worst of us.
How might you use these verses? Would it be helpful to print them out and hang them in a place where each person will see them. Although I am speaking of commitment between spouses; I cannot see why these verses cannot be applied to the parent/child relationship or family/family relationship. We all need people in our lives to support us and love us and since we are all in different areas in this journey we call life, it can be applied to other relationships.
Love well!
Enjoy Chris Tomlin - I will follow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ohvhmGSfxI