Qualified for Blessing

Today I conclude the story that began with this Bible Identity Quiz . Take it before you read on and see if you get the answer. Here‘s the first part of the story where I began telling how I came to ‘identify’ and ‘identify with’ this uniquely favored woman of the Bible.

Oh, to have the daughter-in-law blessing like Naomi did.  Her story had given me a vision for the future. I became increasingly aware of the seriousness of this topic as my study in God’s Word continued. I saw other examples of disastrous scenarios resulting from men choosing the wrong women, the most startling telling of the tragic consequences resulting from the marriage of King Jehosophat’s son, Jehoram, to Ahab and Jezebel’s daughter, Athaliah. The more I learned, the more commited I became to seek God’s wisdom and will concerning my future daughter-in-laws.

Additionally, there was more than these examples from God’s Word that caused me to focus my faith on this subject.  Suddenly I had a story of my own that was playing out right before my eyes, and, like the dreadful Biblical accounts I’d read, this one appeared to be a disaster in the making.

Yes, my oldest had reached the age of independence. Everything was changing.  It was the time of driving, diplomas, and dating. I was finding the transition difficult, to say the least.  The driving was one thing, the diploma another, but the dating…the girlfriend…well, that was another thing altogether.  I even resisted the term.  She wasn’t a girlfriend…she was a friend that was a girl.

As time went on the situation went from bad to worse, disrupting nearly everything our family had known before. It brought division, the likes of which we had never experienced. We spent countless hours, days, weeks, and months trying to stop the bleeding, to prevent further disaster. When all our best efforts in the natural failed, thankfully, one day I was reminded… “we wrestle not against flesh and blood“. If we had been warring according to the flesh I was now determined to take up the mighty armor of God.  I pored over the Scriptures, looking for promises that applied to our situation.  God was faithful to reveal many, and all the while I continued to proclaim my vision for the future, “Like Naomi, I will have daughter-in-laws who love me and are better to me than seven sons“.

I tenaciously began wielding the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.  In prayer, with His promises in my heart and in my mouth, I began to address the situation with spiritual weapons, and let me tell you…I met resistance! My heart was aching and my head was spinning, but more than that…the enemy of my soul was harassing…tormenting my mind with:

“You’re getting what you deserve.”

“You’re reaping what you’ve sown.”

“It was only a matter of time before your past caught up to you.”

“Your faith won’t work because you don’t qualify.”

“You don’t deserve an amazing daughter-in-law.”

“You’re not Naomi!”

He was right…I didn’t qualify.  There was no doubt…I didn’t deserve it. I was nearly incapacitated by condemnation, my mind flooded with memories of my failure, weakness, and sin.  My faith faltered. What was I thinking to believe for such a thing? How could someone like me, someone so undeserving, ever hope to receive the kind of blessing Naomi received in having a daughter-in-law as wonderful as Ruth?

And then…it hit me. Out of the blue it hit me.

“Ruth had another mother-in-law.”

It was true!  Redeemed by Boaz, Ruth now had a new husband and a new mother-in-law. But this mother-in-law was not Naomi.  Oh, thank God….like me, it could be said of her, “You’re not Naomi”.  No, she was a woman with a past, a woman who didn’t qualify, a woman who had sown much she would never want to reap, a woman who could only hope to be spared from what she truly deserved, and definitely, without a doubt, a woman who did not deserve a daughter-in-law like Ruth.

Who is this woman?  Who is this “she” of the Bible?

She is Rahab…the harlot.

Rahab, the wife of Salmon,

the mother of Boaz,

the other mother-in-law of Ruth.

Rahab, a woman who did not qualify for a wonderful daughter-in-law…

but got one anyway!

It was then that I realized…

if Rahab qualified, so did I.

Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,  in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.  Colossians 1:12-14

Go here  for the solution to the Identity Quiz…complete with references and the reason Naomi is not this “she” of the Bible.