“The Lord bless him,” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing kindness…” Ruth 2:20
Kindness.
That word is a positive word. It makes me smile just looking at it. I love reading about random acts of kindness, researching new ways to show kindness and then following through by actually doing kind acts.
In the story of Ruth in the Bible, we see many acts of kindness. Naomi was married to Elimelech and they had two sons, Mahlon and Kilion. The sons married Moabite women and their names were Orpah and Ruth.
Naomi’s husband and both sons died and she left to go the land of Judah. Ruth was determined to go with her because she loved her and wanted to show kindness to her to take care of her.
We see later in the story that Ruth meets Boaz who was an upstanding man and wealthy landowner. Ruth begins gleaning the fields after the harvesters have finished harvesting and Boaz sees her.
He finds out from the harvesters her story and he instructs them to not embarrass her but to pull out some stalks for her and leave them for her to pick up so she gets additional food from her gleaning. He continues to show kindness to Ruth and also to her mother-in-law. And we see that he ends up marrying Ruth and taking care of her and Naomi.
This is a true act of kindness – over and over again. We need to use this as an example. And although situations are different today from Bible days, the word of God never changes. The principles of showing love and kindness to others never changes.
I am on a journey to send cards this year. Fifty-five to be exact on my Year of 55. Today I am stretching outside of the walls of the ones I would normally send a card to and asking God to show me who could use a little encouragement today.
What can you do to show kindness to someone who may need a little encouragement?
