Last blogpost, we read about how God showed His grace through Boaz.

There’s something else about grace. Grace can only be properly received by the empty. At the beginning of the book of Ruth, we see that Naomi complains. She went away full, but has come back empty, she says. Ruth too was emptied. Emptied of her old life. She had lost her husband. This was terribly hard.

And yet the mystery that I have found true in my life and is true in the lives of many others is that when we are emptied, we can be filled. The emptiness in our lives becomes a canvas for God’s grace.

Ruth could not receive the grace of Boaz if she had been capable of earning her own living. Instead, she was dependent on hand-outs. But these hand-outs were a chance to receive something much more valuable: God’s grace given through a human being.

When we encounter our limitations in life, we realise just how dependent we are. We may not think we need grace when we have a good job, when we’re married and that’s going well, when our children are growing up as nice and balanced individuals, or when our health is doing well. No, it then is very easy to pat ourselves on the back. We think things like: I work hard at my job. I am kind to my spouse. See, I have been bringing up my children properly. And, look I’m exercising and eating right. We can even think things like: Look at those poor sinners who have difficult lives. Let me quote some scripture verses at them and help them put it in order!

Truth is, when things are going well, that is by the grace of God. We just often don’t see it. It becomes very easy to see Christianity as another checklist of do’s and don’ts when things are going well. We think we check off the right boxes, and lo and behold! Our lives turn out great! But when we suffer, we suddenly see how needy we truly are. We really don’t have power to turn a single hair on our head white or black, as Jesus says (just to mask it with hair colouring). Our old framework gets turned on its head. It’s not like people who do more good deeds are exempt from suffering. Or that you can earn anything in life! We have to come face to face with the fact that we are all sinners in need of the grace of God.

When we encounter suffering, it becomes impossible to face the difficulties we face in our “own” power. We felt like we were fixing our lives up ourselves to that point. But now we no longer can. We need help from others. Most of all, we need help from God. Finally, we are open to grace!

I am not saying this is everyone’s story. There are Christians who don’t need to go through hardships to finally understand what grace means. But it may be your story. (At least) in part, this is my experience too. I learned more about grace through suffering.

You need to know you’re in need before you can be filled.