“Let me live forever in your sanctuary, safe beneath the shelter of your wings!” Psalm 61:4
One of, if not the most famous line from the movie, Wizard of Oz,would be, “There’s no place like home.” Dorothy definitely got that right as most would agree that, although there are many places you can be in this world, there really is no place like home.
In the Old Testament story of Ruth, Ruth made the choice to cling to a place called home, which for her was more about a person than a place. After her husband’s death, she could have easily stayed in the familiar place of home she had always known in Moab. But, instead, she made the decision to stick with her mother in-law Naomi. Ruth wasn’t about to abandon Naomi because in her heart and mind Naomi was her new home. To wipe away any doubt in Naomi’s mind, Ruth told her mother in-law, “I will not leave you. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God,” and she meant it.
“As it happened,” she ended up working in the field of a man named Boaz, in whom she found much favor. I put “As it happened” in quotes for a purpose because it’s easy to experience things in our lives and sometimes think “oh that was just a coincidence,” or “it just so happened,” but that would be a mistake. Our Heavenly Father is always working on our behalf to bring us to and keep us in the place He calls “home,” and that place is in the presence of His watchful care, favor and love. One of the meanings for the Hebrew word “sanctuary” in Psalm 61:4 literally means “home.”
I’m pretty sure you have your own story, or two, of how you’ve seen God work things out in your own life to bring you back into His perfect plan even when life’s circumstances, or wrong choices, have got you off course.
Today, no matter where life, circumstances, or choices have taken you, you can know there is a home for you inside His watchful care and love.