The Momentum of Hope

Monumental Moments

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

February 16, 2025

The Momentum of Hope

Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Ruth chapter 2.If you aren’t familiar with the story of Ruth, let me catch you up to what’s happening. A woman named Naomi moves with her husband and two sons to the country of Moab due to a famine in Israel. Over time her husband dies and then her two sons die, leaving her alone with her two Moabite daughter in laws, Orpah and Ruth.

Naomi decides her only choice is to move back to her land where as a widow she’ll struggle to survive but at least she’ll do better than if she stays in Moab. She says my name was once Naomi (pleasant), but now my name is Mara (bitter). I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Naomi feels the Lord has taken everything away from her leaving her empty. Empty of family, empty of joy, empty of future, empty of hope. Knowing that her young daughter in laws have no future with her she urges Orpah and Ruth to stay in Moab and remarry.

Orpah does stay in Moab, but Ruth says, I’m not going anywhere.

“Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. ¹⁷ Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.” Ruth 1:16-17

Ruth wants to make Naomi’s people her people and Naomi’s God her God. Naomi thinks God has emptied her, but even empty, Ruth sees more in her life and faith than in her own people. So these two grieving, impoverished women head back to Bethlehem where everyone has heard of these two women and their plight.

And unknown to them, God is about to change their lives.

If you’re a football fan, you know that the momentum in a game makes all the difference. A team can be losing for 3 quarters and then, maybe someone makes a big play, maybe the other team makes a costly mistake, but you can feel the momentum shift. More often than not the team with momentum at the end will win the game.

In physics, momentum = mass x velocity. In life I think momentum = confidence x hope. The losing team starts to gain confidence they can make the next play, gain the next first down, make that next touchdown, and that gives them hope they can win the game.

We see that kind of momentum growing in Naomi in chapter two but it won’t start with anything Naomi does, it starts with something Ruth does. Ruth says, I’m going to glean in the fields and trust the Lord to lead me. I’m not going to sit around feeling life has passed me by. I’m not going to live empty, I’m going to do something proactive and trust that the Lord will bless my efforts.

At this point Naomi is pretty much paralyzed with hopelessness. She has no hope so she has no energy to work the field or do much of anything else so she ends up sleeping late, sitting around in her PJs, trying not to have to talk to anyone.

Some of us have been there. It’s like the wind is knocked out of us and we don’t feel the energy or motivation to do even small things. We don’t feel motivated to do anything. We don’t feel confident that anything will work. We don’t want to interact with anyone – we feel empty. So we stop moving forward.

Sometimes when our tank is empty what we need is a friend to help us regain some forward momentum. I worked in a music store for many years when I was young and one night I was driving home from a church event when my car just stopped running. I had just enough momentum to pull into an empty parking lot to get it off the road. In those days I was always broke so I called a Christian mechanic I knew and asked if he could tow it to his shop and take a look at it. I didn’t know if it was the timing belt or transmission – it just lost all power.

But this mechanic was busy so the car sat in the parking lot for three days. Of course I’m complaining about it at work until one of my co-workers said, let’s go take a look at your car. He stuck a stick into the gas tank and discovered it was out of gas. It didn’t need some expert mechanic to fix it, it just needed a little gas.

Sometimes we need a friend to see what we can’t see and try what we haven’t tried. Ruth was that to Naomi: she helped Naomi regain the momentum of hope. And it came in three stages:

• Hope sees
• Hope risks
• Hope waits

1. Hope sees

For Naomi, the momentum of hope didn’t start with something she did, it started with something she saw: God’s kindness at work in her life again. When Ruth comes home, Naomi is amazed at Ruth’s success.

“Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.” So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, “The man's name with whom I worked today is Boaz.” ²⁰ And Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!”Naomi also said to her, “The man is a close relative of ours, one of our redeemers.” (Ruth 2:19-20)

Listen to what she says: “May he be blessed by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or

the dead!” I think in the back of Naomi’s head was the thought that God had emptied her as punishment for leaving her land and going to Moab, the enemy of God and His people.

But she sees the Lord’s kindness to her and hope stirs. Not only did Ruth come home with a lot of food, but in God’s providence she happened to end up in the field of a close relative – a redeemer. God is at work!

Henry Blackaby says when people ask, “why isn’t God working in my life?” they’re asking the wrong question. The right question is, “why can’t I see where God is working in my life?” The momentum of hope often starts with seeing God’s kindness in a small way and that gives us a little more hope to take another step and another.

One of my hopes for 12 Stones is that we collect prayers and testimonies that help build momentum of hope: God did it for my friend, God is working in our church, God is working in my life. You might be the Naomi who needs help getting momentum and you might be a Ruth who helps someone else get a little momentum of hope going in their life.

So go to gracecorning.org and hit 12stones and write out that prayer you’d like to see the Lord answer this year. Or that testimony of that prayer the Lord did answer.

2. Hope risks

As chapter 3 opens, it’s five or six weeks later, and Boaz has been very generous to Ruth, but now the harvest season is coming to an end. Someone’s got to make a move and Boaz isn’t going to be the one. Naomi comes up with a daring plan:

3 Then Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, “My daughter, should I not seek rest for you, that it may be well with you? ² Is not Boaz our relative, with whose young women you were? See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. ³ Wash therefore and anoint yourself, and put on your cloak and go down to the threshing floor, but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking. ⁴ But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do.” ⁵ And she replied, “All that you say I will do.” Ruth 3:1-5

Hope is growing some momentum in Naomi’s heart. She’s gone from, “maybe we’ll survive” to “maybe God has a bright future for us.” Her plan has risk to it though. She says “Ruth, Boaz has only seen you in your work clothes all grubby and sweaty from a hard day working the field. Get cleaned up, put on your best dress, dab a little perfume behind your ear, and – and here’s where it gets a bit weird - when he’s asleep, go and uncover his feet, and lie down.”

⁶ So she went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had commanded her. ⁷ And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. ⁸ At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! ⁹ He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” Ruth 3:6-9

This plan could have gone sideways fast. Boaz could have been offended. He could have been embarrassed – what if someone saw her lying at his feet? If he was a scoundrel he could have taken advantage of this foreigner’s vulnerability. But Boaz was a good man and he knew that Ruth was asking him to marry her in the most dignified and discreet way possible. He is a kinsman redeemer meaning he has the opportunity, though not the obligation, to redeem her by marrying her. When she says, spread your wings over your servant for you are a redeemer, she is asking him to marry her.

It was a risk. but it was a good risk. Naomi was following the momentum of hope. We can sometimes be so careful we try to shut down all risk but often God has new provision on the other side of risk. Some people are risk addicts – I’m not so much talking to you. I’m talking about those who are risk averse. The way to avoid risk is to avoid the unknown. Avoid meeting people. Avoid making changes. Avoid switching jobs. Avoid trying new things. Avoid sharing your faith. Avoid stepping into ministry opportunities.

Hope is built on confidence in God’s goodness and faithfulness. Fear and hopelessness will seek to shrink our lives in the name of being safe and taking no risk, but the momentum of hope will enlarge our lives in the name of confidence in God. Let’s go back to the football analogy:

To live is to risk. To love is to risk. To walk in faith is to risk. God doesn’t want us living to not lose, He wants us living to win. Romans 8:37 says, ³⁷ …In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. We are (present tense) more than conquerors! More than winners! Take the field in faith and live with confident hope that God loves you and will do good in your life. The momentum of hope gives us confidence to take wise risks trusting God with the results.

3. Hope waits

¹⁰ And he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter. You have made this last kindness greater than the first in that you have not gone after young men, whether poor or rich. ¹¹ And now, my daughter, do not fear. I will do for you all that you ask, for all my fellow townsmen know that you are a worthy woman. ¹² And now it is true that I am a redeemer. Yet there is a redeemer nearer than I. ¹³ Remain tonight, and in the morning, if he will redeem you, good; let him do it. But if he is not willing to redeem you, then, as the Lord lives, I will redeem you. Lie down until the morning.”

¹⁴ So she lay at his feet until the morning, but arose before one could recognize another. And he said, “Let it not be known that the woman came to the threshing floor.” ¹⁵ And he said, “Bring the garment you are wearing and hold it out.” So she held it, and he measured out six measures of barley and put it on her. Then she went into the city. ¹⁶ And when she came to her mother-in-law, she said, “How did you fare, my daughter?” Then she told her all that the man had done for her, ¹⁷ saying, “These six measures of barley he gave to me, for he said to me, ‘You must not go back empty-handed to your mother-in-law.’” ¹⁸ She replied, “Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest but will settle the matter today.”

Naomi can’t wait to hear how things went. Ruth comes in laden with grain – about 70lbs of grain that she carried – and explained all that happened. Look at Naomi’s confident hope now: ¹⁸ She replied, “Wait, my daughter, until you learn how the matter turns out, for the man will not rest but will settle the matter today.” (vs. 18)

Naomi is confident God is doing good here. Wait until you see what God is about to do, Ruth, because Boaz won’t be able to sleep a wink until he gets this thing worked out. Naomi’s heart has gone from empty to full. Full of faith. Full of confidence. Full of hope.

There’s a time for faith to act, and there’s a time for faith to wait. Ruth and Naomi acted, now they need to wait. But there’s a sense of peace in the waiting because they know that God is working on their behalf.

Is there something that you’re waiting on God for? You’ve done your part, it’s now out of your hands. The momentum of hope can make even waiting an exciting part of faith. I remember a time when I felt stuck in a situation and there was nothing I could do but wait. And the words to a song by Steven Curtis Chapman came to me and comforted my soul as I quietly sang this song while I worked.

You wonder when the Lord will renew the strength within you. You wonder how He can use you as you are. Seems like you’re wasting precious time, but then a voice comes to remind you to wait. Wait, wait, wait on the Lord. You will understand in time why you must wait. Wait, wait, wait on the Lord, yes He hears you but for now you must wait on the Lord.

Those words, taken from Isaiah 40:31 encouraged my heart. There is an act of waiting that is as much a part of hope as risking. Ruth couldn’t do anything. Naomi couldn’t do anything. They had done what they could do and the next step was out of their hands. But they could wait and hope. Naomi went from hiding out in her room expecting nothing good to happen to actively waiting and watching for the next good thing God was going to do. Let that encourage your heart too. Pray with hope. Recount past testimonies of God’s goodness to build your confidence that God will be good again. If you need momentum in your hope, remember:

• Hope sees
• Hope risks
• Hope waits

God is always up to good in our lives and always worthy of our confidence and hope.