Here's another talk I did for the pastorate girls...

In Philippians 4:19 Paul writes, ‘My God will meet all your needs…’.   But what exactly does this mean?  We pray, ‘Give each day our daily bread…’ Luke 11:3, yet does God really meet our every need?  And if so, how?

I think God provides for us in 3 areas: practically, emotionally and spiritually.  And I think the book of Ruth not only shows us that God does meet all our needs, but it also gives us some clues about how he does it.

Practical needs
Ruth and Naomi, her mother-in-law, had very basic practical needs.  Both were widows and, as Naomi succinctly put it, they arrived in Bethlehem ‘empty’ (1:21).  They had nothing, and with no state system they faced the very real prospect of starvation.

Ruth decided to take action and asked Naomi if she could ‘go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain…’ (2:2).  Having recently converted to the Jewish faith (c.f. 1:16-7) this initially seems like a severe lack of faith on Ruth’s part.  Surely Yahweh, the one who provided quail, water and manner in the desert for forty years for the Israelites, could have provided bread for two empty widows?

I think, however,  Ruth’s actions demonstrated her trust in God’s provision.  Her request linked back to a law given by God in Leviticus 19:9, ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest… leave them for the poor and the stranger.’   The time when Ruth and Naomi were living was one of the darkest periods in the Israelite history.  There were no kings to rule the people and, as a result, ‘everyone did as they saw fit’ (Judges 21:25).  It was a time of anarchy, and because of this there was no reason why this obscure law should have been obeyed. 

God had given this law so that people in Ruth’s position would be provided for.  Ruth decided to trust God’s law, and God honoured that trust.  The field she ended up in belonged to a man who had decided that this law would be kept. 

I think this demonstrates the way that God often provides.  Ruth could have just sat at home and said, ‘I believe that God will provide for us’.  Whilst God obviously can and does provide miraculously, I think much of his provision comes when we start to actively claim his promises.  Ruth trusted, took action based on that trust and God met her need through her actions.  Samuel 2:30 seems to sum it up, ‘Those who honour me, I will honour…’

Emotional needs
Ruth was a widow.  We don’t know how many years she had been married, but the fact that she was childless suggests that she had not been married that long.  As a widow and a foreigner she was probably very lonely. 

Naomi had left Bethlehem with a husband and 2 young sons.  She returned alone.  This was a broken woman who, on her return, changed her name from Naomi (which means ‘pleasant’), to Mara – literally ‘bitter’. 

Humanly speaking there was not much that could be done to meet either Ruth or Naomi’s emotional needs.  Ruth was a poor, foreign widow – not an attractive option as a potential wife.  And Naomi was old.  Far too old for another husband, let alone another child (c.f. 1:12). 

However, as their story unfolds God demonstrates that he is the God of the impossible.  Two little phrases show that God had a plan to meet their emotional needs.  In 2:3 it says ‘As it turned out…’ and then in verse 4 it says ‘Just then…’.  The field that Ruth ‘happened’ to end up working in belonged to Boaz – her future husband.  And conveniently he just ‘happened’ to turn up and see her working. 

Interestingly it was again Ruth’s actions that played a part in her needs being met.  When Boaz asked who she was, his servant explained and added, ‘She went into the field and has worked steadily from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter’ (2:7)  Later, when chatting to Ruth, Boaz explained that he had already ‘been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law…’ (2:11). 

Despite her own hurt, Ruth acted with compassion towards Naomi and was faithful in her work.  And people saw this.  The result?  She ended up married.  And not just to anyone.  Boaz was spiritually faithful (he kept the obscure Leviticul laws), chivalrous  (he didn’t take advantage of Ruth when she lay at his feet in the middle of the night) and wealthy (he was a landowner).  I love the fact that when God provides he does so in a way that is ‘immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine’ (Ephesians 3:20). 

Ruth and Boaz’s first child also met Naomi’s needs,
‘Then Naomi took the child, laid him in her lap and cared for him.  The women living there said, ‘Naomi has a son’.’ (4:16)

God did the impossible.  He provided a husband for Ruth and a child for Naomi.  He met their emotional needs.  As Genesis 18:14 puts it, ‘Is anything too hard for the LORD?’

Spiritual needs
Ruth was a foreigner.  A non-Jew.  A Moabitess and one about whom God has said, ‘No Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD…’ (Deuteronomy 23:3).

By virtue of her birth she had no claim on God’s promises of provision.  Yet wonderfully God provided her with the opportunity to become part of the Jewish people. 

When her Jewish husband died Ruth had to make a choice.  Did she return to her old family, culture and probable security, or did she take a gamble on this new God into whose people she had been temporarily adopted?

Ruth decided to commit fully to her new God.  She remained with Naomi declaring, ‘Your people will be my people, and your God my God’ (1:16). 

God presented her with an amazing spiritual opportunity.  An opportunity to become part of his chosen people.  And Ruth took it.

We too have a spiritual need.  By virtue of our birth, we are not part of God’s chosen people.  Yet long before we even knew we were in this position, God provided a solution to our problem and a way for us to become part of his chosen people. As Romans 5:8 in The Message says, ‘He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready.  He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.’

Max Lucado illustrated this brilliantly.  Receiving his daughter’s bank statement he saw that she was hugely overdrawn.  When he told her she apologised, but he knew that she had no way to pay back the debt.  She had one option and asked, ‘Dad could you…’  He interrupted her sentence, ‘Honey, I already have.’  He had already paid off her overdraft.  He met her need before she even knew she had one.

The American Pastor C. J. Mooney said this,
            ‘Your greatest need is not a spouse [or a job, more money, spiritual direction etc.].  Your greatest need is to be delivered from the wrath of God – and that has already been accomplished for you through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  So why doubt that God will provide a much, much lesser need?  Trust his sovereignty, trust his wisdom, trust his love.’

Yet as well as providing for our individual spiritual needs, God also provides for our collective spiritual needs.

In the final verses of Ruth we see that Ruth’s great, great grandson was King David – one of the greatest kings Israel ever had.  Through Ruth, God provided a king for his people.

And through us God also provides for his people, the church.  I once read ‘We were saved to serve’.  We each have a unique role to play within the church – that is why God has given each of us different gifts.  We are dependant upon one another, ‘The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependant on every other part.’ (1 Corinthians 12:25)

‘My God will meet all your needs…’ (Philippians 4:19).  God meets our practical needs, our emotional needs and our spiritual needs.  And he then meets the needs of his people through us.  Wow.



Max Lucado illustrated this brilliantly.  Receiving his daughter’s bank statement he saw that she was hugely overdrawn.  When he told her she apologised, but he knew that she had no way to pay back the debt.  She had one option and asked, ‘Dad could you…’  He interrupted her sentence, ‘Honey, I already have.’  He had already paid off her overdraft.  He met her need before she even knew she had one.