{"id":1175,"date":"2021-11-17T08:21:44","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T13:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1175"},"modified":"2021-11-17T08:21:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-17T13:21:44","slug":"how-people-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/11\/17\/how-people-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"How People Grow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Throughout November we\u2019re taking an in-depth look at Ruth, the little book that helped pave the way for God’s Messiah to come into the world.<\/em>


No Girls Allowed<\/em>

That sign might make sense on a \u201cprivate clubhouse\u201d for elementary school-age boys.

But it\u2019s painful to note the restrictions on the lives of grown-up women that remain in place in many parts of the world.   

According to the laws of Saudi Arabia, women are forbidden to drive.  In China, women cannot study mining \u2013 geological engineering is considered \u201cinappropriate\u201d for females.  In Indonesia, unmarried women are not permitted to share a motorcycle with a man.  In Iran, females cannot attend public sporting events.  In Yemen, a woman cannot leave her own house without the consent of her father or husband.   

Such restrictions were widely embraced in classical antiquity, and that included the Near East during Bible times. 

For all intents and purposes, those who harvested grain in Israel hung up a sign that said No Girls Allowed<\/em>.  Female servants and impoverished women like Ruth might glean a few sheaves during daylight hours, but the final stages of the harvest were For Men Only. 

Male harvesters would typically sleep on the threshing floor to protect their piles of grain from thieves.  They would drink enough wine to fall asleep, but certainly not enough to lose track of who might be coming and going during the night. 

We come at last to Naomi\u2019s crazy plan.  Since Match.com is still 3,000 years away, she\u2019s looking for a way that Ruth can signal her interest in Boaz as a potential life partner.

Naomi\u2019s idea is that Ruth should put on her best clothes and a dab of perfume, sneak into this ancient world version of a Boys Club under the cover of darkness, find the place where Boaz is asleep, uncover his feet, lie down next to him, and then see what happens when he wakes up. 

Do you remember the movie Mission Impossible, <\/em>where Tom Cruise has to steal top secret files from CIA headquarters?  Compared to Naomi\u2019s plan, that was a piece of cake.

A lot can go wrong here.  Somebody may see Ruth either sneaking into the threshing floor or sneaking out.  People would quickly conclude she\u2019s exactly what everybody always told them about those Moabite girls \u2013 she\u2019s trash.  What if Boaz wakes up and says indignantly, \u201cWho do you think you are?\u201d  Relationally that would be the end of everything.  On the other hand, what if Boaz wakes up and Ruth finds out that he\u2019s actually a creep and she has played right into his hands?

This is a huge gamble. 

Ruth and Naomi have been blessed by Boaz\u2019s generosity over the past two months.  If this plan blows up, they may be throwing away the one lifeline they\u2019ve had since returning to Bethlehem, and their reputations may be tattered beyond repair. 

We may presume this chapter is not part of a biblical instruction manual on how to pick up cute guys.  What are we supposed to learn from their example?

We can learn from their courage<\/em>. 

This is not just any opportunity.  Naomi and Ruth believe this is a God-provided opportunity \u2013 perhaps the only moment in which Ruth will have the chance to risk everything on a single bold play.  Is this then like a Hail Mary pass \u2013 a desperate throw into the end zone at the end of the game because all hope is lost? 

It\u2019s more accurate to say that Naomi\u2019s plan is a calculated, faith-based risk.  She has begun to suspect that God is actively at work in this story.  God was playing matchmaker long before she entered the picture. 

Therefore Ruth and Naomi will not be passive.  They will not wait to see what happens.  Putting one\u2019s hope in God always calls for a measure of courage.

Nevertheless, if this daring and provocative plan really is from the Lord, why didn\u2019t he just give them specific instructions on how to proceed? 

The answer is that God doesn\u2019t usually operate that way.  In C.S. Lewis\u2019 spiritual adventure series The Chronicles of Narnia<\/em>, Aslan the Lion \u2013 who represents Christ \u2013 never intervenes or solves a problem that the children can solve by themselves.  When teachers want their students to grow, they don\u2019t give them the answers \u2013 even though in our darkest moments as students we all wished we could receive a magical piece of paper with every answer spelled out. 

Good teachers give their students problems that must be pondered, wrestled with, and ultimately solved.  That\u2019s how we grow<\/em>.

And that\u2019s what makes life meaningful.  We were created for far richer experiences than just avoiding the possibility of failure. 

Have you ever heard someone say, \u201cGod will never ask you to face something you cannot handle\u201d?  Rest assured that idea didn\u2019t come from the Bible.  God routinely brings us face to face with problems that we ourselves cannot handle\u2026for the simple reason that he wants us to rely on him. 

As the sun sets on the harvesters in the book of Ruth, it\u2019s time for courageous risk-taking. 

And the girls are going to lead the way. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Throughout November we\u2019re taking an in-depth look at Ruth, the little book that helped pave the way for God’s Messiah to come into the world. No Girls Allowed That sign might make sense on a \u201cprivate clubhouse\u201d for elementary school-age boys. But it\u2019s painful to note the restrictions on the lives of grown-up women that remain in place in many… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1176,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,353,358],"class_list":["post-1175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-courage","tag-ruth","tag-solving-problems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1177,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions\/1177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}