Chrystal Hurst uses Ruth's story to argue that building a meaningful life demands intentional work and bold action without waiting for certainty. Ruth left her home, faced poverty and cultural barriers, and through hard work and faith ended up in Jesus's lineage. Stop over-analyzing and start moving.
Y'all, it takes work to develop your life. It does. And as much as I want you to fight for it and look at it and embrace it, for you to have a life that you're proud of and a life that maximizes all of the time, talents, and treasures that God has given you access to, you're gonna have to put in the work and develop the life that you have. And it's not always easy. It involves making some decisions. It involves moving forward when you're not exactly sure how things are gonna turn out, but you still choose to show up for yourself life and develop your life. That's exercising discipline and, and doing all the things that living a developed life requires. In the Bible, in the book of Ruth, there's a young woman whose husband died and she decides to follow her mother-in-law. She had no reason other than trying to be a good daughter-in-law and chasing after the heart of God to move from her hometown where she spoke the home language, where she knew the home routines, to leave with her mother-in-law and go to her mother-in-law's home where she didn't speak the language. And she didn't know the routines, and she didn't know the people, and didn't know the customs. But in a really critical time, at a very difficult time, she made a decision to move forward in the direction of a God that she wanted to know and a person that she wanted to serve. And making that very difficult decision and walking through a very difficult period of time, struggling through poverty and trusting that God would keep them alive, it's in that decision that she met not only her mate, that she was able to have a child, that In addition to that, that she found herself in the line of King Jesus, all because of a decision she was willing to make, hard work she was willing to do, and discipline that she was willing to exercise at a crucial point in her life. Listen, y'all, developing your life takes work. It takes progress, and progress takes time. Life is all about moving forward on the journey one step at a time. And yes, you're gonna have to exercise some discipline. And yes, you're gonna have to put your foot forward when you don't feel like it. You're gonna have to make some decisions that may not be popular with the people that know you well or the people that you've lived life with up till this point. But as I'm talking about this, I bet you right now there's something in your life that you know is hard to do that you haven't done for no good reason other than you just haven't felt like it. Well, can I challenge you to make the hard decision to quit analyzing the decision that you know the right decision to make and just Step out there. Just move forward. Take a chance. Take a risk and exercise whatever discipline is necessary to develop your life into the life that you can be proud of and the life that God died to save. Listen, y'all, you gotta fight for your life. But in order to do that, you've gotta look at your life to know exactly what you're fighting for. And then when you see what's in front of you, the hard stuff and the good stuff, embrace it all while you work to develop the life that you're gonna live from this day and this day forward. But y'all, that's not it. I'm gonna encourage you to live your life because I know all that other stuff I just mentioned isn't always easy. So stay tuned and I'll get back with you with more encouragement soon.
