Daily Devotional
God’s Refining Grace for Us

“Then Boaz said to his servant who was in charge of the reapers, ‘Whose young woman is this?’”

Ruth 2:5


Ponder This

Samuel Rutherford, a man who knew suffering, has been quoted as saying, “Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace.” Has it seemed like you’re a nail, and some hammer is coming out of nowhere, beating on you? Does it seem like you are a piece of metal, and there is some file that is gnawing and scraping and reducing you? Does it seem like you have been flung into a furnace and are being consumed? Remember that God holds the nail and the hammer. God holds the metal and the file. It is God who has allowed you to be in the furnace and watches over the furnace.

Ruth surely wondered, “Why this hammer? Why this file? Why this furnace of fire?” But if you back out and look at the bigger picture, you see that it was saving grace, it was sovereign grace, and it was God moving everything so that Ruth showed up just at the right time in the barley field when Boaz was there because God had a plan.

  • When have you experienced suffering that felt like a hammer, file, or furnace?
  • How does it encourage you to remember that God has a plan, even in difficult times?

Practice This

Journal today about a time during which you were able to see God’s plan in very difficult circumstances.

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