Hope for more

In Ruth 2:2 we see hope beginning to blossom in a situation that looks pretty hopeless.

Ruth is planning to go gleaning - picking up the leftover bits in the field after the harvest workers have taken most of the crop. She's looking for scraps of food so that Naomi and her can eat, but she's hoping for more. Ruth says "Let me go into the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favour."

In other words, she isn't just hoping that luck will give her some grain that had been dropped by accident, she hopes for someone to show favour to her. She is hoping for more than just what anyone would expect, which shows that she is growing in faith.

What she actually gets is more than even Ruth could hope for (verses 10 and 13 show this). Ruth 2 is a good reminder that faith should raise our expectations, but God's generosity is greater than even our wildest hopes.