road that doesn’t let you see very far ahead, there are frequent signs that say, “The best is yet to come.” Taken as a whole, the story of Ruth is one of those signs. It was written to give us encouragement and hope that all the perplexing turns in our lives are going somewhere good. They do not lead off a cliff. In all the setbacks of our lives as believers, God is plotting for our joy. Taken in its parts, the book of Ruth is a series of setbacks—what we call switchbacks