The faith to leave the Old for the New part 3
The cost of leaving belonging
Whenever we step into a new land, a new course, a new workplace, a new city we quietly wrestle with the ache of not fitting in. Acceptance is seldom immediate. There is that subtle fear of being unseen, misunderstood, or quietly rejected. Ruth knew that ache intimately. When she left Moab and entered Bethlehem, she stepped into more than a geographical shift. She entered a space where she was visibly different. Her own words reveal her inner struggle: ”Why have I found favour in your eyes… since I am a foreigner?” (Ruth 2:10). That question carries the weight of insecurity. She did not presume acceptance. As a Moabite, a people historically estranged from Israel (Deuteronomy 23:3), she had no guarantee of welcome, dignity, or protection. She gleaned in the fields as a poor widow, dependent on the mercy of landowners (Leviticus 19:9–10). Yet it is in that vulnerable space that grace met her.
Boaz not only permitted her to glean; he instructed his workers to leave extra for her (Ruth 2:15–16). He invited her to eat at his table alongside the reapers (Ruth 2:14). What began as isolation turned into companionship among the young women in his field (Ruth 2:8–9, 23). She went home not merely with leftovers, but with evidence of kindness.
God was doing something far greater beneath the surface. Ruth’s temporary belonging in the field of Boaz foreshadowed a permanent inheritance. She became the great-grandmother of David (Ruth 4:17) and part of the lineage of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:5).
Her story echoes the promise of Ephesians 2:12–13 — that those who were once “foreigners and strangers” have been “brought near.” The God of Israel does not merely tolerate outsiders; He redeems and includes them. Ruth left a familiar belonging, but she did not remain homeless in heart. In surrendering what was known, she found herself grafted into a covenant story far greater than her own.
The cost of leaving protection
Moab was familiar ground to Ruth. It was home where she had the natural covering of family. Yet she chose to leave it behind (Ruth 1:16–17). By journeying to Bethlehem, both Naomi and Ruth stepped into exposure. Two widows travelling without male protection in the ancient Near East were socially and physically vulnerable. The road itself carried risk. Even in Bethlehem, vulnerability did not disappear. Ruth gleaned in the fields which were open spaces where exploitation was possible. We sense this underlying tension when Boaz tells her: ”Stay close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest” (Ruth 2:21). Naomi immediately reinforces it: ”It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, lest in another field you be assaulted” (Ruth 2:22). Boaz even commands his men not to touch her (Ruth 2:9,15). The repeated emphasis on proximity and protection reveals a real threat. When Ruth left one form of covering, God provided a tangible expression of that covering through a kinsman-redeemer (Ruth 4:9–10). The protection she left behind in Moab was temporary and natural. The protection she entered in Bethlehem was covenantal and redemptive. Leaving the old did not reduce her security but repositioned it.
Sometimes the familiar feels safer simply because it is known. But God often calls us to loosen our grip on visible coverings so that we may receive His ordained one. The old protection may preserve; the new protection redeems. When God asks us to leave what feels secure, it is not to expose us permanently. It is to bring us into a stronger, divinely appointed covering.
The cost of leaving the past
Leaving the past can be the hardest obedience of all. For Ruth, letting go was not abstract. It was deeply personal. Moab held the memory of her husband, the life they began building, the quiet dreams of children and a settled home (Ruth 1:4–5). Grief is heavy enough; releasing the future you imagined with someone is heavier still. But Ruth did not cling to what could no longer continue. She could have remained in Moab, holding onto memories, resigning herself to a quiet and vulnerable existence. Instead, she chose movement over stagnation.
Letting go off the past positioned her to obey. When Naomi later instructed her concerning Boaz at the threshing floor (Ruth 3:1–5), Ruth responded without resistance: “All that you say to me I will do.” A heart still bound to the past would have struggled to step into such bold obedience. Releasing what was lost enabled her to receive what God was unfolding. Had Ruth clung to her former life, Elimelech’s family line might have faded into obscurity.
It is also significant that Naomi and Ruth did not remain in Moab rehearsing regret. Their physical journey from Moab to Bethlehem was the outward sign of an inward release. Ruth’s approach to Boaz at the threshing floor was another decisive step. If it had been an age of photographs, Ruth would have to delete every image tied to her past, every shared moment once captured in her heart.
The pattern echoes throughout Scripture: Lot’s wife looked back and became frozen in place (Genesis 19:26). Paul later writes, “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead” (Philippians 3:13). Letting go is not denial of memory. It is surrender of control.
Ruth released the life she once knew, and in doing so became part of a story far greater than her private dreams. Sometimes God cannot begin the new while we are still gripping the old. Ruth’s courage to release yesterday opened the door to redemption, and legacy.
More on this in the next…,
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