⁶ When Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had come to the aid of his people by providing food for them, she and her daughters-in-law prepared to return home from there. ⁷ With her two daughters-in-law she left the place where she had been living and set out on the road that would take them back to the land of Judah.
                                                                        -Ruth 1:6-7
 
Finally, something good happens. In the midst of an utterly bleak first few verses of Ruth (chaos and famine and loss and death), the Lord finally moves. He has provided food for the people of Israel, and so after ten years and lots of heartache, Naomi sets out back towards home.
 
New verbs and nouns: the Lord had come to the aid of his people, providing food, returning home.
 
Very seldom are we left without any sign whatsoever of God’s presence in our lives. Even in our darkest hours, there is grace available to us, lifelines tossed our way from a God who is always with us and who always loves us and who never ever leaves us or forsakes us.
 
But very often in those difficult seasons, we feel so buried in the pain and difficulty that we have a hard time seeing and receiving the lifelines God tosses our way.
 
The best way to cultivate eyes to see God’s work in our lives is to practice gratitude. Always. No matter what.
 
Practice gratitude in the good times so that you’ll have eyes to see it in the bad times. Practice it in the average times so you’ll be able to catch the lifelines that God throws your ways in the way-below-average times.
 
Today, no matter what’s going on in your life, there is grace available to you in this very moment. You just have to slow down and receive it.
 
Stop for a minute right now and receive the grace coming at you in this moment: the oxygen you’re breathing, the minutes you’ve already inhabited today as a sheer gift, the material supports of a shelter, a bed, food, water, friends and family, and most of all a God who loves you enough to never leave you nor forsake you. See if you can regularly check in today with prayers of gratitude in order to be wide-awake to the wide-awake reality of God’s deep grace poured out into your life.