Hello Dill, I would like to write an article on something that until recently I was really struggling with. I was adopted when I was three days old. I don't really know anything about my birth mother or father. I was adopted into a large family and I have been blessed with so much. Lately I have been having problems with my conscience about why God chose me and not someone else that was more deserving of his grace. Sometimes I would tell God that he was wrong and I'd weep and say that I just didn't understand. I have been doing a study on Ruth because that story has always interested me. I have the Ruth expositor and so I have been reading it and when I find something worth bible marking I highlight it and later transfer it to my bible. I came to the second chapter in Ruth and verse ten. The background to this verse is as follows…Ruth the Moabitess is in Israel now with her mother-in-law. She has been gleaning in Boaz's field and he has asked his foreman about her. In which he found out that she was a widow of Moab who came back with Naomi her mother-in-law. He has heard a good report about her from his foreman (as from others probably as well…see vs. 11) and he extends a kind and generous offer to her. This brings us to Ruth's reaction in Chapter 2:10 "Then she fell to her face, and bowed herself to the ground. And she said to him, “Why have I found grace in your eyes, that you should take knowledge of me? Seeing as I am a stranger?" Reading this verse brought me to my own thoughts of Christ and I could see myself saying the same thing. If we look at this as an anti typical story we can see Boaz as Christ and Ruth as the called. Ruth is amazed that she has had such kind treatment from this stranger see, as she is a foreigner. This is the same astonishment that the call of the gospel can leave on the followers of Christ. One may not understand why the are given such grace over another but the fact is (and this is what brother HP Mansfield brings out) that it is God Who is "taking out of the Gentiles a people for His name" (Acts 15:14). It is God's will and his plan on why someone receives grace. I think that we need to remember that all have sinned and so all therefore are deserving of death. If God shows mercy and grace towards us hen we too like Ruth should "fall on our face and bow to the ground"! And so we should keep our "eyes on the field that they do reap and go after them" as Boaz told Ruth in verse 9. If we keep our eyes on the word and follow after those in the truth then we too, like Ruth, will have protection ("I have charged the young men not to touch thee" vs. 9). And everlasting refreshment ("And when you are thirsty, go to the vessels and drink of which the young men have drawn" also vs. 9). Because as Jesus tell us that, "whoever drinks of the water that I shall give them will never thirst. But the water that I shall give will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14).

Sis. Miriam Styles