Attitude Is Half The Battle

Where are you on your New Year's Resolutions?  Did you make any? Do they typically stick?  Mine have been to drink more water and get exercise every day.  So far today I've had two cups of coffee and been sitting at my desk for three hours. 

I woke up this morning thinking to myself, "Attitude is half the battle."  I repeated that mantra as I wrangled my son into the car.  I repeated it again, aloud to him, as he whimpered that he didn't want to go to school today when I unhooked his car seat.  I told Pastor Carl about it at my desk this morning.  He laughed and said, "I don't know about half...."

I've been thinking about the upcoming holiday celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.  This year we will host our second Mini Vacation Bible School on this date.  Last year we talked about the good Samaritan and the charge to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.  This year I am pondering the story of Ruth.  I love the story of Ruth and Naomi. I love Ruth's tenacity.   In Ruth's case, attitude was definitely half the battle, at least half.

When Ruth lost her husband, she was still quite young.  She could have returned home to her parents and married again, a person from Moab rather than the immigrant husband she married the first time. The narrative infers for us that Ruth still had prospects, as did her sister-in-law, and mother-in-law Naomi knew it.  Naomi, however, didn't have anyone else. She lost her husband and her sons.  She was a foreigner in a land that was not her own.  She had no choice but to return, a widow, to the land of Judah.  Naomi encouraged the two women to return to their homes.  But Ruth stood fast, she committed to traveling with Naomi, "Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Where you die I will die and be buried."  Ruth was committing, whole-heartedly to Naomi, for life.  Had Ruth's attitude not been one of positivity, love, persistence, and faithfulness...well our story would end here, completely changing the course of our Scriptures.  Attitude is half the battle. 

When the women arrive in Bethlehem, Naomi sends Ruth, who is, by the way, now a foreigner in a strange land just as her husband was in Moab--to glean from the fields what has been left after the harvest.  When Boaz, owner of the fields hears that Ruth has returned with Naomi, he encourages her to take what she needs from his fields and drink water from his well.  He saw in her, the tenacity--the great love and kindness she took to travel so far with Naomi.  Had she not been faithful, humble in this way...what might have happened to Ruth and also to the aging and widowed Naomi?  Attitude is half the battle.   

In the end, Ruth finds a new husband, she is married to Naomi's kin, Boaz, the very same who was so kind to her in the fields.  It was a risk for Ruth to present herself to Boaz in the threshing room, she was demonstrating her serious intent at marriage, but what if Boaz had turned her down.  Ruth put herself in a position where she had no control and very easily could have been shamed and lost what little opportunities she had gained in Bethlehem.  Boaz accepts Ruth and promises that all those in the village will know her to be a woman of noble character.  Brave. Dedicated. Fierce.  Attitude is half the battle.

Ruth married Boaz.  She had a son, Obed. Obed had a son, Jesse. Jesse had a son, we know him as King David.  And so the line to the great king, our Savior, Jesus Christ. In the genealogy of Matthew, Ruth is even listed by name along with several other women.  Not a practice you'd see in genealogy records of the time. 

And so, in this short story from the Old Testament, we are witness to so much of what Christ would have us be and do.  Perhaps, in hearing the stories of his ancestors, Jesus himself learned what it meant to feed the hungry and give drink to those who thirst--as Boaz did for Ruth and Naomi.  Perhaps, from these stories, Jesus recognized the importance of welcoming the stranger--from Naomi's family entering Moab due to famine, and from Ruth the Moabite being welcomed into Judah by Naomi, Boaz, and the community.  Perhaps, from his ancestor Ruth, Jesus learned the art of tenacity and the importance of committing one's life entirely to God and to God's people. 

Maybe this is where our focus ought to be in 2017.  Forget the fad diets and the expensive gym memberships you never use.  Give yourself a break when it comes to organizing that closet or cleaning the house.  At least, let those goals be secondary to the lessons we glean from Ruth.  How do you show love to those around you?  Are you committed to giving your time, your talents, your very life to God and all of God's people?  Are you willing to stick your neck out for someone else, so that they might have the very necessities of life, the same opportunities you have each and every day?  Are your eyes open to the immigrant, the stranger, the naked, the hungry?  Are your ears open to the cries of the oppressed?  I'm not asking if you yourself are the one oppressing them( although check yourself on that too).... I am asking, do you hear them?  Do you see them? Can you help them?  My thinking is that with the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life, yes you can.  You see, attitude is half the battle.