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Enough - Psalm 23 #2 - I Lack Nothing

Just after 4 p.m. on a relatively warm, partly sunny day. It's like, 45 degrees out!! Nothing new to report just now, so let's get right to it...

Although I just watched and notated this message yesterday, I still made it a point to review for this bit. Down in the middle of his message on January 11th, Pastor Matt spoke momentarily about how our innate longing for belonging can lead us to form relationships where we feel the need to perform for our partner. We feel like we have to seem "perfect" or no one will accept us. We wear masks so that we are not revealing our true selves. This made me think of the Billy Joel song, "Stranger". I'll post it below, as I don't have any worship songs for this message, currently.

Let's read slowly together --

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

¹The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.² He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,³ he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.⁴Even though I walk through the darkest valley,^[^a^]I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.⁶Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

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After reviewing from the prior message, Pastor Matt brought out John 10 where Jesus spoke of being the Good Shepherd. He focused our attention on verse 10 in particular. Here, Jesus is contrasting the goals of Satan with His own. While Satan's job is essentially to steal, kill, and destroy, Jesus is encouraging them in the knowledge that He came so that we could have life "to the full"*, as Pastor Matt phrased it.

He then shared an amazing poem, written by a friend who wished to remain anonymous. This woman took Psalm 23 and flipped it to it's opposite ideas. I'll include it in the images below.

The world grapples with feeling like they need more, only to then need more to satisfy. This is a hopeless cycle. When we try to do things on our own, we inevitably fail, if we're being honest. In stark, sobering contrast to this, God offers His Gift of lack. Because only from a place of emptiness are we truly ready to receive it.

We proclaim, "Because I trust the Lord, I have enough." This either feels true or it doesn't. If not, we find ourselves asking, "Do I REALLY have enough, though??" 🤔🤔

These thoughts of trust, or lack thereof, fall into 3 categories --

We may feel a sense of self-condemnation, thinking, "If only I were a better Christian, God would give me more." (Legalism, anyone??)*
Self-righteousness, in this case, looks like, "I DO have enough, and so would everyone else if they only did things the way I do them." (No, God meets everyone where they are at.)
We may feel that emptiness I mentioned above. In this, we feel that everyone else that's better off financially has enough, but we don't.

Pastor Matt then brought out the point that, considering the fact that lack is everywhere, how could David, King of Israel, say he lacked nothing??

Some people build a myth that, "If I just give all to Jesus, life will be good." Those who do that are perfectly content to live with the judgment, both from God and from others.

The truth is that it's not valid. There is literally NOTHING to support this. Not Scripture*, not other people we may or may not know, not even our OWN LIVES support that load of crap!!

We then come to the question, "Who is God in the face of lack??" As we saw earlier, we all want more out of life. But what is it that we are TRULY searching for?? (hint, I mentioned it in my Message Intro, well, part of it) Once again, in talking about our core needs, we revisit the top 3 emotional requirements necessary to our well-being.

Significance -- call it influence, or meaning, it's all the same. We want to feel like we're important in some way, and to someone. We sometimes feel like lack steals this from us.* Also, as Pastor Matt observed, these questions become more prevalent as we get older. We want to know that we continue to be important as our physical abilities decline.
Belonging -- This is the one I explored briefly, above. Our sense of identity comes from the groups of people we most associate with. Family, friends, classmates, husbands/wives, and co-workers.* But then we question whether some of these connections are based on true desire or on fake niceties. This is where we get into the discussion of creating relationships where we have to perform in order to feel acceptable to others. We fear that no one will love us for who we really are, so we hide behind the masks, as Billy Joel so astutely sings about. We are afraid to show our weaknesses and vulnerability, so we pretend to be strong, independent people who choose to allow others into our lives while our true selves are cowering in the corner.*
Peace -- The Hebrew word "shalom" carries the heavy weight of having a sense of calm where we feel that nothing is either missing or broken.* This clearly goes deeper than a simple lack of conflict. This speaks to a mindset of peace, even in the midst of trouble, because we trust God to work it all out for our good. (See Romans 8:38)

Our penchant for grasping either looks like power and force or cunning and manipulation. We defend these behaviors by saying, "The heart wants what the heart wants." And we are willing to do anything we have to do in order to achieve our desires in those moments.*

Whether through social media these days, or more personal encounters before all the tech bombarded us, We have always reached out to others for validation. We may go to our spouse, our co-workers, friends, and family members, saying, "Do you REALLY love/appreciate me??" "I need proof."

At the same time, we may build walls to protect our peace. We only allow a short list of people to disrupt it, and we shrug off all else.*

The truth of all of this is that it's EXHAUSTING. Right?? We grasp at others for value while hiding our true selves behind our masks while building up walls to protect our peace. We grasp, but as Pastor Matt fumbled his words that day, "It falls through our fingles." LOL

He then read a quote from Christian Author, David Gibson: "Psalm 23 is an oasis in a material wasteland." Agreed. In reading this Scripture slowly each week of this series, it brings a sense of calm, even in it's familiarity.

In looking further into the question of Who God is in the face of lack, we may ask, "Will the Lord provide??" As we see in Genesis 22, as God requested Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in order to test him, the answer is a resounding "YES!!".*

Abraham Tested

22 Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

²Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

³Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. ⁴On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. ⁵He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

⁶Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, ⁷Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

⁸Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

⁹When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

¹²“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

¹³Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram^[^a^] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

¹⁵The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time ¹⁶and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸and through your offspring^[^b^] all nations on earth will be blessed,^[^c^] because you have obeyed me.”

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In this portion of Scripture, we find another Name ascribed to God as Provider. As we read down to verse 8, we see that Abraham replies to Isaac's question of the sacrifice by saying, "The Lord will provide.". In the Ancient Hebrew, this would have been, "Jehovah ra'ah", (or Jehovah Jireh, as we see it today) We see in this that provision is actually "woven into" God's character.

Pastor Matt made the observation here that, because lack is a gift, we can trust God in real time rather than simply reading about King David's experiences of trusting Him. Following this, he brought out a perspective I had never heard before on the statement, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." He said that it can sometimes feel like a scolding. In other words, we may see it as, "Because the Lord is my Shepherd, I'm NOT ALLOWED to feel like I lack anything.". I thought that was interesting, although to me, it smacks of Legalism.

The overwhelming truth in all of this is that God has created us to feel certain desires and have them satisfied in Him. He provides all we TRULY NEED. Pastor Matt quoted again here, this time from Rabbi Harold Kushner, "The Lord is my Shepherd; what more do I need??" Amen!? This statement should ring true for all of us. In the midst of lack, vulnerability, and weakness, or even in a place of abundance and strength, what more do we need than God??

The apostle Paul spoke on this in his letter to the Philippians. We read in verses 11-13 where he talks about having learned to be content whether in poverty or riches because he/we can do all things through Christ, Who strengthens us. This is the full context of verse 13. It's not about a last second affirmation that, "I can do all things through Christ - including passing this test I didn't study for." It's about being content in all situations because we trust God for the outcomes. (Yes, even when those outcomes may not be what we thought we wanted.) As Pastor Matt pointed out here, Paul was neither impressed by riches when he had them, nor was he desperate in times of need.

How then, do we learn to be content in our own lives?? Pastor Matt gave 3 suggestions for this --

Stop comparing ourselves to others.
Spend less time fantasizing about new cars, houses, partners, etc..
Focus on God because lacking nothing means having God. And NOTHING can steal that from us.*

-- God Bless!!

Footnotes:

While there are varying perspectives on whether God wants us rich, or to what extent, I responded to a FB post yesterday that spoke to this issue. It was that article from Substack that issued an apology to the very rich in how the Church has historically treated them, and misled them in the ways of Jesus. I responded to this by agreeing, but also saying this man didn't go far enough. He neglected to mention that money, in and of itself, is not the problem. The point lies in hearts toward God. I mentioned the Rich Young Ruler and the Apostle Matthew as two examples of this.
As always, parentheticals are all mine.
In relation to Scripture not supporting the myth of giving all to Jesus, we read His words in John 16:33, saying, "In this world, you WILL have trouble..." (emphasis mine). It's not a question of IF we will have trouble, only of WHEN. The point lies in the last part of the verse, "but I have overcome the world." In this, we can have confidence, and therefore peace of mind that all will be well. (Which actually reminds me of the quote by Catholic Mystic, Julian of Norwich who said, "All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.") I know I send a lot of flack their way, but not ALL Catholics have been bad.
Speaking about how lack can sometimes steal our sense of significance, my boyfriend, Mike, struggles with this. While we are both on benefits, and he actually gets more, as he is on full disability while mine is actually supplemental, he is self-admittedly bad with handling money. I am not. When we actually first reconnected back in 2022, he didn't even have his own roof over his head. He felt bad that he had absolutely nothing to offer me other than his heart. I reassured him that was all I ever wanted. I had faith the money would come, as he was already waiting for approval at that time.
Of course, family, friends, etc... only encompass some of our closest connections. Others may include Religion, Political stance, fandoms of sports, music, or other clubs.
While we talk about love of our spouses or whatever level you are currently at, as having that person "complete" us, we should already feel complete in ourselves. The goal is to actually BE a strong, independent person, because only then are we fully prepared to love another properly. Our partner shouldn't so much "complete" us as complement us.
The idea of "nothing missing, nothing broken" in defining "shalom" comes from one of my former pastors.
As I've mentioned before, my weakness in 2015 led me down a dark path for about 6 months. This was someone I had known and had a schoolgirl crush on, and here he was, back in my life, and wanting to spend time with me!! And not for nothing, he is VERY easy on the eyeball... But, it was wrong, regardless.
Over the last several years now, I had gotten good at protecting my peace, especially where my mother was concerned. CAN a Narcissist change in her 80's?? Time will tell...
Pastor Matt told us that he and Pastor Joe focused on Isaac in that week's podcast. Watch "Diving in With Matt and Joe" wherever you choose.
For more on Eternal Security, see my article on the Reflections page.