God does not give you what you want but what you need

I have preached about the Book of Ruth and about some principles that this Book contains, and I want to do it now in the light of the subject that we have been dealing with, and I believe that if God does not indicate otherwise, it will be the second and last sermon within this larger series about pain, about trials and suffering, and how we can relate to the pain and suffering that is part of this world and part of the experience of God's children, in a positive way; seeing it the right way from the right perspective, facing the pain, facing the tragedies, the losses, the setbacks, the failures of life in a biblical way, in a spiritual way understanding that it is something that is part of the human experience and that God many times uses setbacks, failures, life's sufferings, life's deserts to bless us and improve us, and strengthen us, and take us to another level of quality of life.

It is even God's instrument so that we can be truly happy in the future. If we receive trial and pain in a biblically correct way, if we see it through the eyes of God and His Word, if we relate to the deserts of life in a correct way, even pain can be an instrument for Our future happiness can be an instrument to be lighter at the end of the process, remembering the Word of the Apostle Paul, right? that we get rid of sin and the weight that besieges us so that we can run lightly the race of faith that is the race of life.

Pain has that virtue that, through the fire of the trial, melts away a little of our excess fat and sin, our defects. It is a bit of a psychological therapy that God uses to break many things in us, to melt those quagmires, that which is petrified, hardened by lack of flow, the fire of the test comes and burns those things, and melts them, and makes run again like oil from an engine that has been inactive for a long time dries up, becomes hard, but with the heat of operation the greases begin to flow again, and then the engine can start again.

The struggles, the problems of life can be that, if we take the right perspective and relate to that painful experience in the right way. If we begin to see the absences, the sterility, the problems of life in a redemptive light, if we begin to see it again through the lens of the Spirit, that will change our existence.

Psychologists know that the narratives we adopt about our lives, about our negative or positive experiences, determine the way we live life. If you adopt a negative narrative, by narrative I mean an interpretation, it's like if you write your interpretation of your life it depends on whether you do it in a positive or negative way, that will determine the destiny of your life and the course of your life.

And any experience in life, if it is a particularly painful experience, if you adopt it as something cruel or victimizing that has no possible redemption or anything good in it, it will be like that, it will be something destructive for your life. It will victimize you, it will chain you, it will hinder you on your way. But if you adopt it in a different, positive, hopeful, redemptive way, seeing the hidden gold, you will see that this will change the experience.

The same event affects two people in different ways, even in a family many times: a divorce, the loss of a parent in adolescence, one child can leave there strengthened and sweetened, and blessed and the other can leave bitter, rebellious , cruel, resentful for all of life, depressed because he looked at things in a different way, and so it is with the events of our lives. And so it is with the events of our life.

And God encourages us to see pain and see suffering as something rather positive, to find the gold hidden within it. It's hard, especially when you get fully involved in it, the first blow of pain always leaves us breathless and sometimes the initial reaction is to go and rebellion, and why me, and how God allows this to happen in my life, and get into a corner there and not kiss the Lord's Hand anymore, that may be the first beginning.

And sometimes: hey, okay, sometimes we have to pass the dog first, right? and then then say: you know what? yes, reconsider and go back to the Father and bless him, and lower our heads and say where will we go? If only You have the Word of eternal life, right?

Because sometimes when you go through pain and suffering you say: ah! I don't go to church anymore, but where are you going to go, into the hand of the devil, into this cruel world out there without the protection of the Lord? It is that there is no other way, there is not. After you know the things of the Kingdom of God there is nowhere else to go. And above all, if you stay involved in the Kingdom, in the long run you will receive what you need, you will learn, you will grow and God will begin to bless you then. Well, that's the beginning of the interpretative framework of what I mean.

Last Sunday we talked about the experience of Elijah and his great crisis in the desert, how God used that desert of Elijah, his total depression, his ministerial failure in a sense to give him a different perspective of God and of himself to show him another aspect. of ministry and of God, not only the God of fire and brimstone and judgment who kills 500 false prophets and destroys them, but also the tender, loving, motherly God who supplies you with a baked cake and a glass of water twice a day. prophet who is emotionally exhausted and puts him to sleep and rest, and then gives him a powerful revelation that He not only dwells in the earthquake and in the fire, and in the explosive wind but also in the tender and still whistling.

So we saw that Elijah's ministerial failure, his moment of being between a rock and a hard place and realizing that he is not that powerful man who performs terrible miracles, but is also a man who needs ministering, needs to be served, needs the maternal touch of God and that he needs to see also the maternal aspect of God, all these things are enclosed and much more in that painful experience of Elijah, and we see then how God used pain.

Today I want to talk about Ruth and Naomi, and look at this narrative that is given in the period of the Judges, the Book of Ruth. That's why this Book is weird because it's tucked into the very Old Testament there before First Samuel and Second Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, before that in the time of the Judges, before there was a King in Israel, Ruth and Naomi, their drama is recorded in the Bible although the Book was probably written much later. Some believe that it was in David's time and three generations later that Ruth existed because we are going to see something very interesting about Ruth later.

But this story is given in the time of the Judges specifically and that is why I tell you that it is so important, I hope that everyone here knows about Ruth's narrative right away. No one who knows the Lord and who has time in things of faith should ignore this story and not know it well, Ruth's life, my task today should simply be to comment on the narrative because we should all know it by heart, it is a very beautiful story Although we don't know all the details.

But I want to talk precisely about how to overcome a terrible loss, how to transcend the tragedies of life and reach the final point of blessing and triumph. Because the Book of Ruth begins precisely with a very tragic scene because her mother-in-law, Naomi, had gone with her husband and her two children from Bethlehem, interesting that at this time of Christmas, here we have Bethlehem playing a very important role because she is This story is related to Jesus, the Messiah who was to come centuries later.

Ruth and her husband Elimelech, and their two sons Malón and Chilion, it seems that one of them was very bad because they call him Malón, not only bad but Malón, I'm playing, a cheap joke at 9 in the morning (laughs). but Malón and Quelion, please never name a child Malón, if you run out of possible names consult me and I will give you a more attractive name. But Malon and Chilion went with their mother and father to Moab, a pagan land and they left Bethlehem of Judah in a time of barrenness and famine in Bethlehem, they left, they transported themselves to this region of Moab and there they lived for some time. , and unfortunately Naomi's husband died, and their two children who married two Moabite women, Ruth one of them and Orpah too. Is anyone here called Orpah? I don't want to make jokes or anything (laughs), just in case.

Ok, Ruth and Orfa, by the way there are many Ruths in the world but very few Orfas and partly because Ruth chose a much better path, the path of nobility and generosity. The case was that Malon and Quelion married two Moabite women and unfortunately they also died. Imagine, at an advanced age, probably what Naomi was like, losing her husband and then losing her two children, and having to bury her two children in a foreign land when you left your land precisely looking for a better life, emigrated to another place to seek a better life and yet all your dreams, all your plans totally failed and you find yourself alone there in the sunset, at the end of your life, a tragic scene.

And so the first chapter records how Naomi takes her two daughters-in-law and they set out on the road with them, and about halfway down the road, I imagine it in a dramatic way, Naomi coming to where two roads divide, a road divides and she goes in two directions: one goes towards Bethlehem and the other goes towards another part of Moab.

And at that point Naomi stands with her two daughters-in-law there and says to them, "Return, my daughters," in verse 11, and before that, "Return, each of you, to your mother's house, may the Lord show you mercy as you have shown him." made with the dead" that is to say his children "and with me. Then he kissed them and they raised their voices and wept" verse 9, "and said to him: surely we will go with you to your people." There was a first effort to be faithful to Naomi.

But then Naomi insists: no, go back girls, why are you going with me? Do I have more children in the womb that can be your husbands? You know that in the Old Testament there was this custom that she could have children and that the two girls waited for these children to grow up and then they married them, the whole question of redemption, of having children, of not remaining single, widows, then he is alluding to this Israelite custom.

And she says: look, I'm still old, I can't have children and even if I did, are you going to wait for them to grow up so you can marry them? They are going to have problems with the department of wellfare for children and families, right? for child abuse. So go away.

At first they say: okay, no, we want to go with you like this weakly, but Naomi insists and Orfa says: no well, I already tried so now I'm going to Moab, and she takes the road, very legitimate, very appropriate, she decides to go back with his family to see, to test his future, but Ruth with immortal words tells him: "Don't beg me to leave you and get away from you because wherever you go I will go and wherever you live, I will live "Your people will be my people and your God my God, where you die I will die and there I will be buried. So do the Lord and add me" is like an oath that she makes "that only death will separate the two, Naomi She is amazed and sees the determination of this young woman and says: well, I'm not going to continue fighting with her, amen.

And I believe that this is where it begins, in that noble scene, so beautiful, the theme of this story begins because we see the nobility here. For me the entire history of the Book of Ruth is a story of generosity, of nobility, of grace, God working through the generosity of the protagonists of this Book and I believe that there we already have a teaching about the importance of nobility. I'm going to talk a little bit about that later, right?

But I want to reinforce an important point that we have already talked about. Because notice that neither Naomi nor Ruth, nor Orpa, nor Elimelech and his two sons have done anything to deserve such a great tragedy, it is not impious and sinful people but quite the opposite: noble people, hard-working people, honest people, people even pious and yet look at how devastating this tragedy has been, all the losses this family has experienced.

Remember what I have told you, that the suffering, the loss, the tragedies of life do not only come when we are outside of the Will of God, many times when we are in the center of the Will of God, rather because God is working. .

This is another thing about this Book and it is that here there are no portentous miracles as we see in the Book of Exodus with the great prophets, but this is an everyday Book of two women who experience a great loss and throw themselves to solve their situation , but God is involved in the whole process.

We continually see divine intervention in very providential ways, arranging divine coincidences, preparing the person to marry Ruth and opening doors, and blessing her efforts. God is in this whole process. They are not far from God. God is in the very middle of their situation taking them to another level.

Ruth and Naomi could have stayed there in Moab with their children and lived a perfectly ordinary and normal life, and today no one would know that Ruth and Naomi existed, like Orpah. No one preaches sermons about Orpah except to point out the contrast with Ruth. Orpah chose the simple path of life, normal, who knows if she married someone back in her town, she went to her gods because Naomi says: "Go with your family and your gods" that's very important, right? because Orpah chooses to return to her old situation.

Naomi and Ruth leave Moab and return to Bethlehem to their spiritual foundations. They went to Moab to the pagan world, there they suffer a terrible loss, now they return to Bethlehem to restore themselves, to find a solution, it has already been said that God has visited Bethlehem again and that there is a harvest, in fact they return at harvest time , prosperity is returning, the time of financial crisis has passed and once again they are harvesting again.

They go to Bethlehem again. I believe that Bethlehem is the place of miracles. Bethlehem is the place where the Presence of the Lord is in a sense, Bethlehem is returning to your spiritual roots. When you go through turmoil and loss in your life, don't stay in the place of loss there, slowly cooking in your own juice, go to Bethlehem. Bethlehem is where the Word of God is, Bethlehem is the holy place of prayer, Bethlehem is where you return to seek refuge in the Word of God, Bethlehem is where you fight with the angel for God to heal you and restore you, Bethlehem it is where you look for the solution to your problem instead of staying in resentment and in the sense of loss and victim, and of failure, no. Return again to your place where there is bread for you, where there is hope for your life.

Many people when they go through crises and tribulations, what do they do? they move further away from God, they become more rational, they begin to water down the Word of the Lord, the promises of God. They try to adjust their knowledge and understanding of Almighty and generous God to their tragedy instead of doing the opposite, adjusting their loss, their crisis, their plight to Almighty God who wants to redeem their tragedy. Do not stay in sterility, right? Seek in God your restoration and your healing, fight with the angel at night there, while you drink your tears, cry out to the Lord like Job.

The Book of Job is also a Book of terrible loss and the most fascinating thing about the Book of Job is the struggle that Job had with God, because sometimes we think of Job as a one dimensional Book where Job had a loss, he stood there as a a trunk and in the end God blessed him, no. Job wrestles with God, Job questions God in a sense. He tells him: look, I have done the best I could, why has this terrible loss come to me?

And the Book of Job, one of its most powerful dimensions is the internal drama of this man who drinks his tears wondering: where is the God that I know? and that he stays there until God gives him his answer, and God gives it to him at the end, eh? Because many times God takes time but in the long run He blesses you and heals you if you give Him time, if you pass your test with the Lord, if instead of moving away from Him you embrace Him and begin to fight lovingly with Him .

That's what's important. When we go through tribulations and trials, let's not walk away, let's not impoverish our understanding of God. If God has not given you what you have asked for and what you trusted that He was going to give you, do not add water to the soup, right? believe not, that this is how God says and that there must be some answer but do not lower your understanding of the loving, merciful, Almighty God that you have. Fight until you see it restored again and you can go back to Bethlehem to eat the bread of the Word of the Lord once more and enjoy the worship in a clear way.

How nice when one has passed the crisis and the test and one's feathers begin to grow again, right? and one returns again to receive joy and to adore God again after the time of spiritual poverty, that's nice, isn't it? that. That is, the pain passes. What I want to say is that God is working in the midst of this, because God wanted.

I wonder if one day Ruth was sitting there at home eating a good meal with Boaz, her husband, and a respectable lady, mother of one who was to be the ancestor and ancestor of Jesus himself.

Do you know that Ruth became David's great-grandmother? Naomi became the great-great-grandmother of King David, this Moabite, this woman who came from a pagan land is elevated in status to being the great-grandmother of King David from whom descends the Lord of lords and the King of kings, the Messiah who would rule all humanity, and Ruth constitutes a deposit of that Gospel that was for all nations, for pagans and for Jews, for those who were inside and those who were outside, those who were inside and those who were far away.

That is why Ruth is so important because she is a pagan woman, a Moabite, but God wanted her in the lineage of His Son. Through the human blood of Jesus ran the genes of Moab, a pagan land, including enemies of the Kingdom of Israel and Ruth could have spent her entire life anonymous and spiritually poor but God wanted to put her in a royal lineage.

I imagine that if Rutth had been asked while she was sitting there at home watching her grandson or her son, a respectable woman in Bethlehem, Ruth, if you could turn back the clock and not have lost your husband what would you choose? ? I insist on thinking that Ruth would not have thought for a second and said: no, God's Will was fulfilled, I want exactly things to happen as they did.

Ruth perhaps never even knew that she was going to be ancestor of the King of kings and Lord of lords. She probably didn't even know that she was going to be the great-grandmother of the most glorious king Israel has ever had and would ever have, David, because that's something else. Many times we go through situations in life and tragedies but we do not have the privilege of fully understanding why, but God had a plan for it and perhaps others will know, generations later.

Do you remember the illustration that I read some time ago of how an intervention on the part of a person changes destiny in the future and sometimes we do not know the full impact it has had on our lives? Sometimes we won't know why God didn't give me this, why the other thing happened to me, why this trial came into my life, why I had to, we won't know but we have to trust the Lord.

I tell you one thing: the last card that a Christian plays is that, even if you do not know the answer to why your losses and your tragedies, give them to the Lord and believe that God is good and that He has a purpose. When you do not know how to explain some loss in your life and God does not give you the answer immediately, you say: Lord, Your Will be done. I don't understand why but I know that You are good and that You have a good purpose in this. Because God was using loss, pain, widowhood, all these things to lead these women to experience an exalted drama that would bless humanity for centuries and centuries as he blesses us today on this Sunday in December.

These women were being used, that is. Do you know that God often changes the limited enjoyment of a positive situation for the exalted, noble, sublime, sacred enjoyment of spiritual growth, do you understand what I mean? Many times we have to trade cheap emotional gratification for spiritual greatness and spiritual growth.

And unfortunately what we like is, you know? immediate gratification. Who wants to lose a child or lose a longed for career because maybe this will make you a more noble person? we who are so immediate gratification will always choose the tastiest and most immediate, but God does not think so. And in eternity I believe that we are going to think as God thinks and we will look back at the video of our life and we will see that things that we regret with bitter tears can now be seen in the light of the God who knows all things. We will be able to see how this blessed our descendants, how it blessed our environment, how it prepared us for other joys and other greatness of spiritual life, because God is an objective God.

God does not give you what you want but what you need. God wants you to reflect the glory and greatness of Christ Jesus, not that you are a spoiled little boy who gives you the popsicles and ice creams that you like but that you do not have any kind of spiritual greatness, what interests God most is that you Christ be formed in us and that we reflect more and more the glory of Him and His character.

Then He is going to work in life. He was working in all this suffering and suffering of Ruth and Naomi to bring them to an end. So what we are saying is this: that in the life of every believer it is real, it is going to come and what we have is that this dough is there to knead it and work it with the principles of Scripture, and know that God may be leading us to something much better. as he did with Joseph, with Moses, other great heroes of the faith, using the tragedy, the struggle, the drama to take them to where He finally wanted to take them as in the case of Ruth and Naomi, God is working in them in a powerful way it can also work in your life.

Then another thing, again: this principle is very important here, right? that pain can come into our lives and that how we deal with pain determines what happens in the end. If Ruth and Naomi had simply gone in there to grieve their terrible loss and stayed in Moab what happened would not have happened but these women choose to face their situation and see that there is positive hope.

In this case the end of Ruth and Naomi is not the end but the beginning. The end is that they lose their husbands, they lose all their inheritance but it is simply the beginning of the drama, that is why it is at the beginning of the Book in chapter 1 because now is where their story begins, right?

Another principle that I see here is that Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law, listen to this, inserts God in the midst of her suffering, she purposefully inserts God into her drama because wherever she wants she is pointing to God. Look, for example, I'm going to take it like this at random in verse 9: "The Lord grant you that you may find rest each one in her husband's house." Before that: "Jehovah show mercy to you as you have shown mercy to the dead and to me."

There is also a very dramatic passage there in verse 13 when they want to stay with Naomi for the first time, she says: "No, my daughters, I am more bitter than you, for the hand of Jehovah has gone out against me." Noemí sees what is happening as God is against her but the interesting thing is that she does not rebel against God, it is like: God has given me a slap, God is doing something in my life contrary, but at least he is bringing God into his drama.

In verse 20 he says: "And she answered him: do not call me Naomi" which means pleasant. How ironic is this? In Hebrew Naomi means: pleasant, "otherwise call me Mara" do you remember the waters of Mara? That is why it is so important to know these dramas of Scripture, "call me Mara" which means bitter or bitter, "because the Almighty has put me in great bitterness."

Don't you sense there an element of adoration and submission to the Will of God? "The Almighty has brought me into bitterness." When she said: the Almighty is saying the one who has the power and right to do what He wants, I have no power to go against His designs.

In verse 21: "I went away full but the Lord has returned me empty. Why call me Naomi? Since the Lord has borne witness against me and the Almighty has afflicted me." No? wherever.

Ruth's perspective is wrong because she sees suffering as a punishment from God, as a negative action of God as many times we can do, however the first thing is that she does not rebel against God, she submits to His Will and blesses, and I believe that this frees her from drying up and sterilizing, and from ending up in bitterness.

Because I say here that even if our theology is wrong, keeping God at the center of the perspective of our experience is key. When we live our struggles, our pains, our tragedies in the light of the divine, of the narratives of Scripture, of the principles of the Gospel, do you see? we redeem them, we give them a height, we give them a nobility that they would not have if we only lived them at ground level as something that simply happened and that makes no sense, has no redemption.

When you decide to put God and the Word of the Lord, the principles of the Kingdom and see your struggle, and see your struggle and your tragedy in the light of the Word of God and what is God doing, what do you have in mind, What do you have in mind, what are you working on in my life? What you do is raise, raise the quality of what you are experiencing. I don't know if that sounds very philosophical to you but it brings blessing to me.

Because many times depression, depression, when we go through tribulations depends a lot on the idea that we are alone, that our sufferings have no greater resonance than ours and that suffering is simply the indication of the meaninglessness of life, when we meet and we see each other as if we are in a blind alley, and that I am drinking my tears alone and that there is no one, there is no witness to see my suffering.

The beauty is this: that the most sublime witness that your drama has is the eyes of God that are looking at you and are living with you what you are going through. The fact that you have a reader, an interlocutor, an observer of your drama, as sublime as the Almighty wow, that magnifies your drama instead of you seeing it simply as something cheap and that has no redemption, when we do or recognize God as the omnipresent element in all aspects of our life, this makes our struggles have a height and an intensity that frees them from the banal; banal meaning the cheap, the meaningless, the everyday.

I think of Paul in his cell in Philippians, right? and not knowing if he is going to survive or if they are going to execute him, and yet Paul writes one of the most sublime and most beautiful letters, and most joyful of all Scripture, Philippians, the Epistle of joy. And look at how Paul sees his predicament, his drama that he is living in that Roman dungeon. Paul says in Philippians 1:12: "I want you to know, brothers, that the things that have happened to me" in other words, my being here in this prison "have redounded rather for the progress of the Gospel."

Ah, he is seeing his drama through the benevolent purpose of God. Paul knows that he is going to be a witness there in the house of Caesar's praetorium, many soldiers are going to come to know Christ through him and he did not know that those words of his were going to be recorded in Scripture throughout all the earth. Its prisons had a cosmic, global, eternal resonance.

But he doesn't even know that. He is looking at how, while in jail, he can preach the Gospel. He says: "In such a way that my prisons have been made evident in Christ throughout the praetorium, and to all the rest. And the majority of the brothers, taking courage in the Lord with my prisons, dare much more to speak the Word without fear." In other words: others who have seen my drama and have seen me announcing the Gospel say: wow if Paul says it, I can do it too. Wow, if this man can remain faithful there in the midst of so much trial, then what am I complaining about?

You see that Paul, this is a theme that is repeated many times, that Paul sees his suffering, his sufferings, his illnesses in the light of the Kingdom of God and the benefit that this produces, and that allows him to have a redemptive perspective of his suffering and seeing it as something great, a sublime drama, he does not see it simply as: these soldiers grabbed me and God allowed them to put me in jail and why? and God is neither as strong nor as loving as He thinks, nor as faithful, He is seeing that God is working through their struggles.

Let us make God the interlocutor in our struggles, let us include him as an integral, central part of our situations. By including it we will understand that we are not alone. And do you know what is one of the most powerful ways for you to include God? the sentence. When you are going through trials, the first thing you have to do is throw yourself at the feet of the Lord, hold on to God's skirts, go into the temple right away, take refuge in prayer, because prayer changes our perspective.

Prayer is not only the effect that God gives us what we ask for. For me, prayer is what renews my vision, what fills me with encouragement, what invites me to look at eternity and not only at the moment, at the quagmire I am treading on at that moment. Prayer is an exercise in perspective among other things. Prayer allows you to see things with the mind and eyes of Christ. Prayer is where you sweat your pain and your fear.

And besides that, prayer transforms. Let's talk later, because one of the things I want to talk about is that. One of the most powerful things to change our temperament, our character, our deficiencies, our bonds, compulsions, our obsessions is the power of God, appeal to the power of God and appeal to prayer.

For me, prayer is like radiotherapy: take that tumor there from your addiction, from your struggle, from your compulsion and your neurosis, and that prayer is like heat that gradually reduces the tumor until it completely undoes it, it takes time like radiotherapy but it arrives. , and in the end you will see that you will have the victory.

Prayer is very important as well as spiritual warfare, two things that help us live healthy lives. Prayer, fasting, I would also say, and spiritual warfare, three things that help us to go, but we are going to talk about that as a separate topic because I believe that there can be no spiritual health if there is no continuous prayer that is like blood. that carries toxins throughout the body and eliminates them, and that oxygenates the body.

Very important, because prayer allows you to see the gold hidden in your tragedy and not see it simply as a blow that did not vibrate and stayed that way, it had no greater resonance, a stone that fell into the bottom of a well and made no sound. because of how deep your situation was.

When you include God in your struggles, even when you are seeing Him as we saw in Lamentations chapter 3: "I am the man who has seen affliction under the whip of His anger, He turned against me and shook His Hand all day long" says the prophet Jeremiah, seeing God as a bear that has clawed at him and has forgotten him, but still says: "By the mercies of the Lord we have not perished, they are new every morning."

Sometimes you are going to see God like wow: where were you when this happened to me? Were you sleeping, were you running after a star, some meteorite in space and you neglected me? No, he has not neglected you. Even the question is already an advance because at least you are acknowledging that He is, and after that maybe you can go to another level.

I am going to leave the message here, who knows if at some point I will pick it up, because there are so many things in this passage but time is enough for us and we will return at some point to deal with it and who knows, next Sunday we have I have to do the customary Christmas sermon, I'm going to leave it for a little while but we'll come back to it at some point, because it's a very beautiful passage, these women are powerful, you know? These are not those little women out there all undone and impotent, these are spiritual giants as the Scriptures record so many powerful women, they are enviable giants.

But I love this idea that suffering came, loss came to lives that were very noble, but God was preparing a drama from which all humanity would benefit for centuries and centuries, and unfortunately these beings had to pay the price so that that drama occurred, but it is a drama that has possibly blessed billions of people who have read it, and has enriched the literature of humanity and art, how many paintings. Go to Google and search: Ruth images or paintings and you will see, all the great artists of the renaissance and the middle ages have painted pictures of Ruth, dramas have been produced throughout history. They had to pay the price.

But pain can come, suffering can come into your life, but remember that God is using you for something that you may not understand yourself, but it is good. And secondly keep God always, do not lower your theology because pain and loss have come into your life, enrich it. Your theology is going to be richer and denser with pain than the opposite, you know? the pain is going to enrich it, it is going to make it deeper, more complex instead of that cheap theology that everything is fine and that there is nothing wrong with life, that God is going to give you the Cadillac and the BMW, the blue-eyed husband who is 6'4" tall and the perfect, exemplary children. God is too complex a playwright to content himself with cheap Disney stories like this as a child. He writes sublime texts in our lives, we'd better get used to it that from the beginning, okay?

If you want to be a true warrior, fasten your seatbelts, in my country we say: whoever wants a high bun can withstand pulls. If you want to be a great warrior of God, a deep woman, a worker used by God, God is going to treat you, God is going to work in your life, God is going to dig into your flesh so that the oil of His Word can fit inside you. Keep God at the center of your narrative, amen?

God bless us this morning, we're going to put our heads down for a little while. If you have heard something good, record it in your heart and spirit and absorb it. Those losses, those sufferings, I ask the Lord to give me the power to apply what I preach to myself, sometimes I get very enthusiastic about what I say here but when I leave here I know that I have to apply it to myself too. God help us all to live the Gospel at that high level, at that deep level, at that complex level, we have a God who never changes His ways but is always good and merciful.

Father: I pray that we can all live up to this precious text of Your Word, that we can follow the path of Ruth and Naomi and glorify You even in our losses, the gaps, the seemingly unanswered prayers, the deficiencies and the deficits of our life, that we always remember that You are present, You are there in our favor, generous, compassionate God, involved in our dramas including being their Writer.

I pray for my brothers and sisters who are going through difficult situations at this time, in these Christmas days they feel lonely, they feel sad, they do not have everything they want, they worry about their loved ones, they are going through a bitter time in their marriages , in your finances or in your health, oh Lord we ask that Your Grace be with us. Thank you because Christ defeated principalities and powers, He defeated the principle of evil and death and in Him there is no ultimate loss, there are no hells, there are no blind alleys.

Help us to see the world and our lives through the perspective of Your beautiful Kingdom. We banish depression. We banish depression, we banish anxiety, we banish the sense of failure, we banish rebellion and bitterness, we banish the sense of failure and victimhood, we banish questioning Your Love and Your Mercy, we banish resentment against our neighbors, we banish bitterness against our parents or teachers who did not give us what we needed or wanted, we banish dwelling too much on the bad memories of the past and look towards Your glorious and bright future Lord this morning.

I ask that the perspective of Your people be transformed this morning Lord Jesus, Father glorify Yourself in Your people and we believe that You have good things for us Lord.

My brothers: I want to invite you just as you have been for a moment, if there is someone who wants to give their life to Jesus Christ this morning and has not done it before, and it feels like God to do it now, I do not want to finish without opening that opportunity for someone who I want to tell the Lord: yes, I receive you my God, my Lord Jesus Christ, come into my life because I need you and I know that in You I have the salvation and hope that my life requires. Will there be someone before we leave here? We want to pray for you and that you have that opportunity to give your life to the Lord, we wait a moment.

Amen. Thank you Father, we adore you, we bless you Lord. Thank you for this special service and for Your people who are here Lord on this day, thank you for all that we have handled this morning, the mysteries of Yours Father and all Your blessings, in Jesus Name thank you Lord, amen and amen.