One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for.”
                                                                                    -Ruth 3:1
           
At this point in Ruth’s story, she’s lived as a foreigner in (the little town of) Bethlehem for several months.  She’s been gleaning in Boaz’s field and this has sustained both her and her mother-in-law Naomi in their time of transition.
 
But at some point, Naomi knows, it would be ideal for Ruth to get re-married. Naomi wants Ruth to be provided for after Naomi is gone.
 
And so this chapter in the story opens with Naomi acknowledging that even though the current situation has worked okay for a few months, they can’t simply stay put.  “Good for now” is not good enough.  Naomi doesn’t want Ruth to settle.

For some of us, this is a challenge.  We scrap and claw and finally ‘land’ somewhere. It’s not great, but it’s working okay for us. If it ain’t broke (yet), why fix it?  If you watch HGTV, you know in the housing industry they call this “delayed repair.” It often means a bigger price-tag, and all at once rather than spread out.
 
But Naomi is wisely looking ahead to the very real fact that this situation will have an expiration date and so they have to keep pushing ahead.  And every now and then, we need to do the same thing.
 
Here are a few “looking ahead” questions to help you get started:

• Is there some portion of your life where you knew you were settling for what was less than ideal at the time and you intended to continue to work on it or circle back to it, but you never have?
• Is there some portion of your life where things are starting to unravel due to the fact that you’ve settled there and ignored it for too long?
• Is there some area of your life where you just know there’s an expiration date on what’s working right now and it would be good to take a small step towards a more long-term solution?

 
Take a couple of minutes to prayerfully consider the above questions. Pick one area where you know there is work to be done and see if you can take one step today to getting that area moving again.