The Not So Obvious Road

I was reading a devotional today where the writer is studying Orpah. You know, the infamous quitter, as we've been taught. She is the one in the story of Ruth who chose to return to her forefathers as suggested. She went the other way, not to the land of the new God she had discovered in Naomi's family, but back where she grew up.

The word return, this writer says, indicates a returning but not necessarily to the way things were before. Imagine that, choosing the route of taking the message of Israel to a foreign land. Which decision really is harder?

It makes me think how sometimes God wants us to do a U-turn for His name's sake and repeat what we had escaped. Not like a dog returning to its vomit, but as a tiny light shining in the darkness. Alone. Without backup. How Orpah must have endured scorn and rejection, and we must wonder, did her faith hold up. Only heaven knows. But, I think Orpah went the direction God told her to, and sustained her in it.

Ruth moved to a land full of those of like faith, and she ministered there, becoming the lineage of Jesus Christ. But, Orpah, at the same time moved upon a people who no longer shared the same faith. She had a better way, and could very well have saved the otherwise lost.

Don't always choose a life of ministering to other Christians. If God is calling you to minister to the non-Christians, know it is a valid and needed calling. While God works within the body of Christ, we must also work from without.