Message in a Bottle

Ruth 2:10-11 “Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him, Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger? And Boaz answered and said unto her, It hath fully been shewed me, all that thou hast done unto thy mother in law since the death of thine husband: and how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore.”

I recently read about a man and his daughter who found a bottle on a beach in North Carolina that the surf had washed up on shore. Inside the bottle was a message with directions to contact a fire department in the Northeast when the bottle was found. The message was written in 1969-this message in a bottle had been traveling for nearly forty years!

Its return to you may be slow, but it is sure. What is “washing up” on your shoreline? Does it seem like the whole world is out to get you? Perhaps they are, and what you are casting out is returning to you. If you find impatience and unkindness on your shoreline, isn’t it reasonable to expect impatience and unkindness have been going out?

It is sheer folly to think that your arm is stronger than God’s surf. What you throw out will wash up on your shore. Ruth should not have been surprised about Boaz’s kindness-she was simply finding the Lord repaying the kindness she was throwing out!