Date: Thursday, 3rd July, 2025
Text: Ruth 1:16-17
Author: Pastor Adedeji Fadehan
Exhortation:
There will be challenges in any marriage. It takes determination and focus to sail through. When the storms of marriage come, not every marriage survives it. Some are blown away by it; some marriages sink permanently, never to rise again. But if Jesus Christ is in your ship, you can rest assured that you will rise above the storms.
This brings us to the ninth principle of marital success known as the Principle of Unwavering Commitment. Other words for ‘unwavering’ are resolute, firm, fixed, steadfast etc. To be commitment is to be dedicated to a cause, activity, etc. to be unwaveringly committed in marriage is to be resolutely loyal in marriage. It is not to share your marital commitment with another but with your spouse.
Ruth demonstrated this kind of unwavering commitment. She was married to Mahlon, one of Naomi’s sons for roughly ten years before he died. Her commitment for her husband was so strong that even after his death, when her mother-in-law encouraged her to depart from her and seek another life Ruth replied saying:
“Entreatme not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me.” Ruth 1:16-17
She had tasted the love her husband shared with her and the goodness of the God of Israel, whom her husband served, and she was so determined to cling on until death separated her from her mother-in-law. Despite her husband’s death, she was loyal to her husband’s family, even though she had no child for the late husband. Death was not strong enough to kill her love for her husband’s family.
Most other women would have disregarded their old mother-in-laws as ‘archaic and old school’. Not so with Ruth. She respected the wisdom of the elderly mother-in-law and submitted to her authority. Eventually, it paid off because her mother-in-law made sure that God settled her; she remarried and became the great grandmother of King David and the matriarchal progenitor of our Lord Jesus Christ- Ruth 4:18-22; Matthew 1:1-16.
Ruth’s unwavering commitment gave her a permanent place among the greatest women on Earth. Up till today, her name is mentioned all over the world.
Action Nugget: Determine to be unwaveringly committed to your spouse, come what may.
Bible in One Year: Proverbs 8-11