Monday 13th July

I’m sure you’ve all heard about he weird scientific fact that says that if you place a frog in boiling water it jumps out, but if you place it in cold water and slowly heat it up it wont appreciate the danger in time and will boil itself to death (Nice!)

 

Well actually that is just one of those urban myths. Frogs aren’t stupid. When the water gets too hot they jump out. I know they do because I conducted a scientific experiment when I was twelve - well as scientific as you can get with 3 frogs from the garden and your mums best saucepans.

 

I was bored and it was Sunday morning and no one else was up. Now for those of you who are interested - the one put in hot water jumped straight out. The one in cold water stayed there for a bit and then jumped out when I turned on the heat and it got hot. The one in the pan which I slowly boiled tried to jump out but kept hitting its head on the lid I had weighted down with 2 tins of beans. It died.  Conclusive evidence!   Incidentally, to teach me a lesson, my mum made me eat the cooked frogs legs for tea. She said I shouldn’t kill animals needlessly (as if eating it afterwards makes it ok ?! Strike one for the The Mrs. Levett school of mothering)

 

Now as far as I know Naomi or Ruth or Boaz didn’t have to eat frogs legs. But go way back to chapter 1. Naomi tells Ruth & Orpah to go home. About verse 8. Okay, you're with me. Something beautiful happens here. A few verses on. Verse 14. Notice what it says, "... but Ruth clung to her." Clung.

 

Just think about this for a second. Was Orpah a bad individual? Had Orpah done something wrong by going back to Moab? Was it a sin ? Did she do something wrong by the third time her mother-in-law said to go home, to actually go home?! No, it's not that Orpah did something wrong, it's that Ruth did something better and there's the simple choice.

 

Eating frogs legs is not wrong. But there is always something better. And it's the same choice that is made apparent in the New Testament when the Paul, at the end of I Corinthians 12 says, "with everything that's happening here, and all the abilities that you have, now I want to 'show you a more excellent way.' " I want to show you the way of love.

 

We can settle for the easy way. We can live in mediocrity. We can live on the fence between our old life and our new one. We can follow the Bibles way until it gets too tough or until it gets in the way of what we want. Verse 17. " 'Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried." There is more than symbolism; there is reality in this. Even with her young husband dead and the chance to go home, Ruth is abandoning her past. She is fully clinging to this new family of Naomi and saying, "I will be buried with your family. I'm giving up on Moab. I'm giving up on the old world, the old ways. And starting afresh.

 

Are you ready for the ‘more excellent way’ ? To leave behind the past and move on into new undiscovered lands.

 

Until tomorrow.

 

Ps.   Everyone says they taste like chicken. They don’t, They taste like frogs legs. Nice. But still frogs.