As we are introduced to the story of Ruth, it’s apparent that both Orpah and Ruth had professed faith in the God of their husbands. But that faith had never really been tested. God tested God’s faith. God tested Abraham’s faith. It can be demonstrated that God tests the faith of all those who profess their trust in Him. In Genesis 22 we read “and it came to pass that God tested Abraham…” In Ruth we might read, “so it came to pass that God tested Ruth and Orpah’s faith.”
Naomi calls her two daughter-in-laws to her and tells them to go back to their own people. Gingrich explains it well: “Now they were faced with a decision which would reveal whether their faith was spurious or genuine. Would they go back or go on? If they went back to the Moabites’ god, the Moabites’ land, and the Moabitish people to receive a husband and rest for the flesh, then their faith in Jehovah was spurious. If they went on to a strange land, to a strange people, and into a future which held forth no prospects of a husband and rest for the flesh, then their faith in Jehovah was genuine.”
The point is that no faith is real until it has been tested. When the trials come will we keep going or will we go back? We can go back to what’s comfortable. We can go back to what’s familiar. If we keep going, we face the unknown, the uncertain and the unfamiliar.
Max Lucado says, “When a potter bakes a pot, he checks its solidity by pulling it out of the oven and thumping it. If it sings, it’s ready. If it thuds, it’s placed back in the oven. The character of a person is also checked by thumping. Been thumped lately?”
Orpah went back, Ruth remained and became a heroine in the hall of fame of faith. She was a real fighter. Paul Simon wrote about the fighter, the boxer; “In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade, and he carries a reminder of every blow that laid him down or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame—‘I am leaving, I am leaving!’ but the fighter still remains.”
Ruth was a fighter!