I remember a movie I would always watch whenever it came on. It was called Fried Green Tomatoes. There was a character named Ruth, and in one part of the movie her mother died. Ruth’s friend sent her a note with the passage, “And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.” This passage is found in Ruth 1:16-17. In it Ruth is talking to her mother-in-law Naomi. Naomi’s husband and two sons have died, and Naomi was returning to her people in Judah. Naomi tells her two daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah, to return to their mothers and that the LORD will deal kindly with them. At first her daughters-in-law don’t want to leave her, but Naomi still tells them to go. Orpah decides to go. After Orpah leaves, Ruth clave unto Naomi and tells her what the above passage, Ruth 1:16-17, says. When Naomi saw that Ruth was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she let Ruth go with her.
In my opinion, I think Ruth is a great example of how a Christian should be, especially a Christian teen. We should always be willing to follow God no matter what. Christian teens have a hard time in life. We want people to like us, so we start doing what they do, yet we also want to follow God, and do what is right. We don’t want to let our friends down, but we also don’t want to let God down. I have a hard time myself. When my friends ask if I’m going to the dance or if I want to go swimming with girls and guys, I have to tell them no, but when I do, I feel bad that I’m not hanging out with them, dancing and swimming. I’ve learned, though, that it is ok to say no to your friends if they want you to do something that you know is bad and sinful. Most of the time they understand and are not mad.
You don’t have to be in the “in crowd” to get through this life and get to heaven. There’s a saying I keep seeing on posters at my school that say, “What’s right is not always popular, and what’s popular is not always right.” I think that is so true. If you do things that your friends want you to do when they are sinful things, you stray further and further away from God. You don’t want to stray from God, you want to get closer to him and follow him, just like Ruth did with her mother-in-law. Our associate preacher tells us that it’s not how much closer to the edge you can get, but how far back from the edge can you get and be more pleasing to God.
Even though as Christian teens we have a hard time, we should not get bogged down on if we are upsetting our friends or if people are laughing at us and teasing us. We should look at what we are doing and say, “I know this isn’t the most popular thing to do, but I know God is very pleased with me.” We should always be pleasing God. It’s your choice – are you going to just follow your friends without seeing if it’s pleasing God, or are you going to follow God even if it is not the most popular thing in the world?
