Naomi and Ruth walked on and on along the road that led back to Israel. It was summer and the days were long and hot. The two women must have been tired every night when they lay down to sleep. Sometimes they stayed overnight at a stranger's house, but often they slept outdoors under a tree or in the corner of a field.

Every night Ruth lay down closer to a foreign country. What was she thinking about? Maybe she was concerned because she would soon arrive in a strange land where she would know no-one except Naomi. The people would be Israelites. She was from Moab, a country that had been at war with Israel in the past. Ruth spoke a different language and her skin was a bit darker too. Maybe she wondered if she would be lonely. Would the Israelites accept her among them?

Do you sometimes feel a bit like Ruth may have felt? Maybe you are different from the other children at school. You look differently, speak differently, behave differently or you can do different things. Maybe you have less money or you believe in a different religion. You feel strange and lonely. Maybe others make fun of you or treat you unkindly.

God cares about you and loves you very deeply. He knows everything about you. He doesn‘t mind that you are different. He wants to take care of your greatest need and help you with other problems too. Your greatest need is not really to be accepted by other people. It is to have your sins against God forgiven.

You deserve to be punished for all your sins. You break God’s laws and that is why you cannot be with God. Your sins have stuck to you like dirt. That is why you cannot come to God who is perfectly clean and pure.

But God loves you so much that He gave His Son, the Lord Jesus, to be punished instead of you. Jesus died on the cross so God could forgive you and accept you into His family as His child. Jesus did not stay dead. He rose from the dead and is alive today to be able to forgive you and to take care of you.

Have you already asked the Lord Jesus to wash away your sins like we wash away dirt? Do you want to ask Him now? Do you want God to help you not to do wrong things? There is a lovely prayer in the Bible that you could say to God. Here it is, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7). If you pray that sincerely from your heart, God can make you clean and pure. You can do that right now!