Lua and multi-paradigm programming: scope and capabilities

Question

Despite having started learning programming with Pascal and C, after the jump to OO (C++, Java) I lost sense of the structured programming paradigm. I have started learning Lua and I have researched many tutorials, but all of them only cover basic operations and language features and capabilities. They feel more like a reference doc than a programmer's guide.

Now, when trying to work with day to day tasks, how does one go through most common design patterns like observer, or multithreaded programming, creating UI elements and polling system calls for keyboard or sensors? Is it even feasible in this languages or you have to work with the C binding, libraries and low-level programming to get most stuff done? Do I get the Lua scope wrong?