God has specific plans for each life but he also has generational plans for us. You are part of a generational line that is woven into God’s plan to bring his Kingdom on earth. In the book of Ruth we can see the greater generational plan of God. Ruth’s obedience made her a member of God’s eternal plan.

Because of famine, Elimelech, with his wife Naomi, and two sons Mahlon and Kilion moved to Moab from their homeland of Bethlehem. While in Moab, Elimelech died. The two sons married Moabite women Orpah and Ruth. After ten years, the sons died leaving no offspring. Without her husband and sons, Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem and gave her daughters-in-law the choice to either return to their relatives in Moab or to go with her to Bethlehem. Orpah returned to her relatives and Ruth chose to accompany Naomi.

Since they have returned poor, Ruth went to glean in the fields for grain to eat. By her demeanor, Ruth found favor in Boaz’s field. Ruth did not know Boaz was a relative of Elimelch and is in line to redeem or buy back Elimelech’s land since it has no male heirs. By tradition Naomi and Ruth come attached to the land. The first cousin in line refuses the right to the land and the women, so Boaz redeemed the land and family. He married Ruth. They have a child Obed, who will be the father of Jesse, the father of David of whose line Jesus springs.

In the face of misfortune, God works out his plan. God sustained Elimelech and his family in Moab through the famine years. Had the men not all died, who knows whether they would have made their new life in Moab and never return to Bethlehem leaving their inheritance to fall by the wayside or be stolen. However, since the men died, Naomi decided to return to Bethlehem, her hometown. Ruth decided to go with her to a land foreign to her. She provides the possibility of an heir.

Through the earthly circumstance of famine and death, God worked out his plan to have Ruth, a non-Jew, in the ancestry line of Jesus who will be the one to join Jew and Gentile. God will use circumstance to move us into position to fulfill his purposes.