Last week, we began our journey through the Book of Ruth. It starts with someone arriving in a new place, carrying loss, questions, and uncertainty. Ruth is an outsider. A foreigner. Someone who obviously doesn’t belong.
But what she finds is something unexpected. Not just survival, but a place at the table. A place to belong. And what’s striking is how it happens.
Over the next three weeks, we are going to step into one of the most beautiful and surprising stories in Scripture: the Book of Ruth.
At first glance, Ruth is a small and quiet book. It sits between much larger and more dramatic stories in the Old Testament. There are no armies marching, no prophets confronting kings, no miracles splitting seas. Instead, the story unfolds in fields, homes, and ordinary conversations between people trying to survive loss and uncertainty. Yet within this simple story lies a deep message about belonging.
Several years ago, a young woman arrived in a small town where she knew almost no one. She had left everything behind. Her home. Her extended family. The language and culture that had shaped her life. She moved because the only person she had left in the world was an older relative who was returning to her hometown after a season of loss.
I have not seen the movie, “True Grit,” but I have read a few favorable reviews, one of which lauded the moralistic virtue that comes through the film especially embodied in the character of young Maddie. The review quoted her as saying: “My father would want me to be firm in the right, as he always was.” And then… “The Author of all things watches over me … and I have a good horse.”
Now that’s enough to sell me right there.
We are, all of us, a combination of very human, very ordinary things, yet with a spiritual component of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. It’s this balance, this sacred right up next to secular – the holy and the common – that makes up who we are. You can’t have one without the other. Try to spiritualize everything and you lose the human element that makes life real. Try and explain everything in human terms and you miss the hand of God shaping and giving meaning to everything.
Indeed, you can’t understand Jesus without accepting the human and the divine altogether. And it’s not half and half, 50% of each. Jesus was (is) 100% God and 100% man. That’s why He can identify with us.
Yes, the Author of all things watches over me… and I’m also glad I have a good horse!
If you choose your hotels based on their workout rooms, pools, saunas, Jacuzzis, restaurants, free hot breakfasts, room service, easy parking and modern amenities, you would not like the hotel I stayed at last weekend in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. It has absolutely none of these things. But what it does have is history.
“Beaumont, Banning and Blythe” would be a great idea for a song.
Southern California east of Moreno Valley is like another state.
Steaks ’n’ Cakes is still operating off the last California exit before Arizona on Interstate 10. Amazing. Except this time it was “Steaks ’n’ French Toast” because they were out of cakes.
The old town of Blythe is dead, rusted and falling apart. But they now have a Starbucks and a Chipotle restaurant. Soon the “other” California will invade this place and Steaks ’n’ Cakes will be more.
The wildflower explosion I was expecting in Arizona hasn’t hit yet the way it has in Death Valley.
They like Sixpence None the Richer in Arizona. I’ve heard three of their songs since I’ve been here and one of them wasn’t “Kiss Me.” One of them was “Breathe,” a song you can’t help but worship when you hear it. And the beauty is, you can hear it anywhere. I heard it in Starbucks. Listen here if you want.
Just across the line into Arizona, gas was $3.29. It was $6.10 where I last filled up in my town in California. I guess they don’t know yet that there’s a war in Iran.
People in Arizona are unpretentious. There’s a whole bunch of folks attending a convention near my downtown hotel all dressed in weird costumes like it was Halloween. I asked one of them why, and they shrugged and said, “We’re just crazy.” And a couple just walked into the Starbucks where I’m at right now wearing identical T-shirts. Sorry, but that just wouldn’t be cool in California.
If you choose your hotels based on their workout rooms, pools, saunas, Jacuzzis, restaurants, free hot breakfasts, room service, easy parking and modern amenities, you would not like the hotel I’m staying at in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. It has absolutely none of the above. But what it does have is history. Wait for the next Catch when I will explain all the things that are great about the Hotel San Carlos built in 1928.
Take my sorrow and my sin
I will run into your arms again
Hold me, father
Once again my tears are dried
By your perfect love that’s river-wide
Overflowing
As I stand on its bank with my arms overhead
I am overcome
As I breathe
The air of heaven
Drawing in your fragrance
When I breathe
I feel your fullness
Come alive inside of me
You’re the breath that I breathe
– Sixpence None the Richer
As a young adult, trying to make sense of the religion I had grown up with was a challenge. I had had enough undeniable spiritual encounters with God to convince me of the reality of the gospel and God’s reality, but even in a strong Bible-believing church, it was hard to find anyone living a genuine faith that had them honestly struggling between belief and doubt. Faith was pretty much a given (at least outwardly) and so our Christianity consisted mostly of a conformity to certain standards for our lives. I conformed with the Christian peers I grew up with, but the main difference between us and non-Christians were the things we believed and did and didn’t do. I trusted our leaders, but at the same time they seemed distant to me. They fervently believed but their lives were not very transparent, so neither were ours.
There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest… Hebrews 4:9-11
The last song in the New Covenant musical is a short one; that’s because it’s such a simple and profound truth that it’s all said in four lines:
Rest, rest in Him
Your work is through
Lean back on His great power
He’ll work through you
That’s it. This is the new covenant in four lines. First, we must understand rest. This is not talking about lounging around on Sunday afternoon with the funnies. Nor is it about taking the easy way out of anything. Nor is it about not doing anything and letting God do everything.
We continue our series on the New Covenant using the songs from the New Covenant musical as a track to run on. And there will be a link to a YouTube version of the song to listen to at the end of each Catch. Enjoy and learn.
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We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. (2 Corinthians 4:10-11)
We continue our series on the New Covenant using the songs from the New Covenant musical as a track to run on. And there will be a link to a YouTube version of the song to listen to at the end of each Catch. Enjoy and learn.
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We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We All Get Hurt
Words and Music by Dale Annis
We all get hurt.
We always seem to end up face down in the dirt.
And hounded by the pain, we just remain
Satisfied to be hurt again.
We close our minds to the meaning in the madness that we find.
We prefer to hide out, and rarely try to find out
Just what pain is all about.
But if there’s one thing you need to know,
It’s that hurtin’ only makes you grow
And the pain you feel is the first step in bein’ healed.
Yes there’s one thing you need to do, it’s to get your eyes off you.
Place them on the Lord and he’ll make pain an open door.
We all get hurt.
We always seem to end up face down in the dirt.
Though hounded by the pain, we don’t need to remain
Satisfied to be hurt again.
Don’t close your mind to the meaning in the madness that we find.
Don’t you try to hide out, but really try to find out
Just what pain is all about.
‘Cause if there’s …
by Marti Fischer
Most of us spend a good part of our lives trying to avoid pain.
We plan carefully. We work hard. We try to make the right choices and surround ourselves with the right people. Somewhere along the way we begin to believe that if we do enough things right, we might be able to sidestep the deeper wounds that seem to shape so many other lives.
John Fischer The Catch 