Day 3 – Why do I ever doubt God will {create} a way where there seems to be nothing?

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.  Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely if even death separates you and me.” 

So Naomi returned from Moab accompanied by Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, arriving in Bethlehem as the barley harvest was beginning.  Ruth 1:16-17 & 22

In the English dictionary, {create} means to bring (something) into existence. To {create} is to produce, fabricate, make, fashion, build, or construct.

In Hebrew (had to ask for a tutorial in BLB from my dear Bible-nerd friend, Kaitlin Miller) {create} has similar qualities, however with more depth of meaning and not limited to physical construction.  For example:

In English, we tend to think of creating as something we accomplish with our own creative mind, hands, talent, and skill.  Whereas the Hebrew word (Qal) indicates specifically, God is always the subject – to shape, fashion, create

• the tangibles – the physical – heaven, earth and individual man
• and the intangibles – new conditions, circumstances and transformations

As in Psalm 51:10 – Create in me a pure (clean) heart, O God – {create} in this verse actually means for God to shape, fashion, create, make or form a new heart out of nothing.  It’s not a renovation or re-fashioning of the old – fixing it up or patchwork.No, it is King David (great-grandson of Ruth) asking God to create and give him a new, freshly-breathed heart, which has never existed before.  In a fresh way, I wonder this morning if this is why God called David a man after His own heart.

I (God) will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26 

And with all of these thoughts percolating through my brain this morning, I sit completely in awe of my God.  He who created our earth home – the tangibles and intangibles – He knew from before the foundation of this earth He would create, form, fashion a woman named Ruth.

Ruth – a Moabitess.  A foreigner.  How would she have ever had an opportunity to know about the One True God except that Naomi and her family moved out of their homeland and into Moab?

I’m in awe because I tend to think Elimelech made a mistake moving his family from their home (in a sense running from God) trying to escape the famine.  The GOODNESS of God washes over me afresh this morning as I contemplate the intricate details God had already thought of and established – the Law He created to take care of foreigners among His people.

The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born.  Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.  Leviticus 19:34

I focus in on the loving-kindness of God to {create} a way for Ruth where seemingly there was no way for her to be in the genealogy of King David and ultimately of Christ, our Savior.  And Naomi as well – even if she and her husband mistakenly left their homeland of Judah – God did a work in Naomi.  God took her ashes and created beauty from them.

I am amazed anew at God who takes my mistakes and messes and imperfect scenarios and creates something new.  Thank You, Holy Spirit, for creating in me new eyes to see Your ways are not my ways.  Hold my heart in Your Hands, God, and breathe it new so no root of bitterness might grow in my heart.  Breathe me new.  Create me new, my God.