You Have All That You Need

Psalm 23

A Psalm of David.

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul:

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil: for thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

Thou lanointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever

Here it is…we have enough. “Enough of what?” you ask. Well, according to Scripture, we have enough of what we need to live the abundant life God created for us. While it may sound simple, the enormity of this claim is hard to overstate. We live in a culture of perpetual, merciless scarcity. We are fixated on the gap between what we have and what we believe we need. Want proof? Consider our scarcity attitudes in almost every area of life.

We don’t have enough time in a day or days in a week to meet the demands put on us

We don’t have enough finances to feel secure

We don’t have enough faith to follow Jesus as we’d like

We don’t have enough control over the things that impact us the most

We don’t have enough courage to speak out or take a stand on important issues

We don’t have enough resources to accomplish what God seems to be calling us to do

We don’t have enough experiences to make life fulfillin

We don’t have enough peace to be a witness in a world in chaos

We don’t have enough strength to make it through the difficult times we face

We don’t have enough patience to be with difficult people when they need us

We don’t have enough love for neighbors and enemies as Jesus commanded

We don’t have enough trust in God to surrender everything to Him

We don’t have enough stuff to make us happy

We don’t have enough hope to keep us going when we can’t see the horizon

The gap grows wider in organizational life. Consider:

Our church doesn’t have enough finances/staff/volunteers/facilities for us to grow as we’d life

Our nonprofit doesn’t have enough donors/board members/volunteers/staff to achieve our vision for expansion and widening impact

Our business doesn’t have enough clients/cash flow/quality staff/facilities to reach our goals and make the money I want to make

Our national economy doesn’t have enough people spending, consuming and going into deeper debt to keep the it growing

This scarcity lurks in our relationships.

My marriage doesn’t have enough communication/love/time together…

My relationship with my kids doesn’t have enough…

My relationship with my friends doesn’t have enough…

My relationship with my fellow church members doesn’t have enough…

This is capped off with the gaps in our ultimate relationship. How many of us say we don’t spend enough time in devotions, prayer, quiet time with God? And as a result, we lament that we don’t have enough faith, enough knowledge of Scripture, enough trust in God’s provision or enough confidence in His promises.

Continue the list for yourself. Stop right now and fill in the space, “I live my life believing I don’t have enough _______________.”

In the face of this tidal wave of lack and want, we should be stunned by the claim made in the opening verse of perhaps the most popular chapter in all of Scripture. David starts the 23rd Psalm with these shocking words.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I have everything I need.”