You can get good counsel and read helpful books and diagram your life on the kitchen table, but ultimately, the answer is in your heart. And when your heart is totally given over to follow Christ and walk in His ways, you can’t miss the will of God in the outworking of your daily life. He’ll get your feet there, one way or another. Yes, the route may be roundabout. It might include a climb over some jagged mountains and a dip down through some dry, rocky valleys. But He’ll get you there.
I can’t help but notice that Ruth found her way and her future in a harvest field. That’s where things happen. That’s where relationships develop and deepen, and where destinies are revealed. True, none of us can earn a relationship with God by working for Him, but we can certainly learn the depths of such a relationship when we busy ourselves with what concerns Him most … the harvest.
To think of the biblical term “harvest” is to think of people helping people, touching people, loving people, serving people and winning people into the love of God. On the other hand, to misplace or lose our perspective on “the harvest”—on serving people with life—is the surest way to short-circuit the promised possibilities of our lives.
I’ve found a common element in every individual who grows bitter, misses fulfillment, becomes sour, complains about God, falls into self-pity or wonders “why nothing ever happens to me.” That common denominator is a lost sense of ministry … of serving, loving, helping and reaching out to men, women and children in the Savior’s name.
Ruth’s life says to you and me: Get out into the harvest. Get out of yourself—touch lives for Jesus’ sake. As you do, things will begin to happen. Without even being aware of it, you’ll be edging ever nearer to that new time and place in your life.
Copyright © 2008, 2010, 2013 by Jack W. Hayford, Jack Hayford Ministries
