Eating and Dieting from Ruth

And she did eat, and was sufficed, and left.
—Ruth 2:14

This refers to these verses in the Book of Ruth where she honored her mother in law with whatever food they had.

• 14.   At the lunch break, Boaz said to Ruth “Come over here; eat some bread. Dip it in the wine.” So she joined the harvesters. Boaz passed the roasted grain to her. She ate her fill and even had some left over.
• 15.When she got up to go back to work, Boaz ordered his servants: “Let her glean where there’s still plenty of grain on the ground – make it easy for her.

• 16.Better yet, pull some of the good stuff out and leave it for her to collect. Give her special treatment.”

• 17.Ruth collected and gathered grain  in the field until evening. When she threshed out what she had gathered, she ended up with nearly a full sack of barley!

• 18.  So Ruth gathered up her gleanings, went back to town, and showed her mother-in-law the results of her day’s work;  then Ruth  gave her the leftovers from her lunch.

Whenever we are privileged to eat of the bread which Jesus gives, we are, like Ruth, satisfied with the full and sweet repast. When Jesus is the host no guest goes empty from the table. Our head is satisfied with the precious truth which Christ reveals; our heart is content with Jesus, as the altogether lovely object of affection; our hope is satisfied, for whom have we in heaven but Jesus? and our desire is satiated, for what can we wish for more than “to know Christ and to be found in Him”?

Jesus fills our conscience till it is at perfect peace; our judgment with persuasion of the certainty of His teachings; our memory with recollections of what He has done, and our imagination with the prospects of what He is yet to do. As Ruth was “sufficed, and left,” so is it with us. We have had deep draughts; we have thought that we could take in all of Christ; but when we have done our best we have had to leave a vast remainder.

We have sat at the table of the Lord’s love, and said, “Nothing but the infinite can ever satisfy me; I am such a great sinner that I must have infinite merit to wash my sin away;” but we have had our sin removed, and found that there was merit to spare; we have had our hunger relieved at the feast of sacred love, and found that there was a redundancy of spiritual meat remaining.

There are certain sweet things in the Word of God which we have not enjoyed yet, and which we are obliged to leave for awhile; for we are like the disciples to whom Jesus said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.”

Yes, there are graces to which we have not attained; places of fellowship nearer to Christ which we have not reached; and heights of communion which our feet have not climbed. At every banquet of love there are many baskets of fragments left. Let us magnify the liberality of our glorious Boaz.