Psalm 23:1 — “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
My son used to ask me a question I could never quite answer. As you may know, Paul said, “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound” (Philippians 4:12). Deannie Jr. would look up at me and say, “Okay, Dad — we’ve got the being-abased part down pat. When are we going to abound?” I’d laugh, and then I’d feel it, the way every father feels it. Because the honest answer was: we never did abound on the mission field. The need here is simply too intense. Winnie and I lost nearly everything of worldly value. And yet, in all these years, my children never once went without what they truly needed.
Not often what we wanted. Always what we needed. Every single time. Winnie and I were both raised that way too — lacking plenty, and provided for always. And I’ve come to believe something the world would call foolish: it is good for a soul to be raised lacking a little. Lack is unpleasant — I won’t pretend otherwise, and I’d never wish it on anyone. But for those who love Jesus, lack has a way of becoming the doorway God walks through.
The world screams at us that we don’t have enough. The television says it, the phone in your pocket says it, the neighbors say it. And then I walk out my door in Managua and see barefoot, half-starved children playing baseball with a stick and a rock — and having the time of their lives. It’s all perspective. It depends entirely on whose voice you’ve been listening to the longest.
King David made a staggering claim: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Another translation puts it even more plainly — “I lack nothing.” The reason it was staggering is that David did not write that as a sweet shepherd boy in a sunny field. He wrote it after losing his kingdom and running for his life from his own son, who wanted him dead. He was hiding in caves, hungry, thirsty, betrayed. And during that bleak and depressing time in his life, he boldly declared, “I lack nothing, I shall not want!” Why? Because he believed in God and understood that life and death are in the power of the tongue. How? Because David had learned the one thing most of us miss: what you need and what you want are not the same, and only One of them was ever promised. I am sure he would have loved to have his relationship with his favorite son, Absalom, back. Having his kingdom back would have been great too! But those things were wants, not needs.
Romans 8:28 — “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Think about where Jesus chose to begin. His very first miracle wasn’t a healing or a resurrection — it was a wedding that ran out of wine. A small, ordinary, embarrassing lack. His mother simply told Him the need: “They have no wine” (John 2:3). No demand, no strategy. Just the lack, laid at His feet. And He filled that need — not just a bottle, but over a hundred gallons, better than anything they’d served all night. That’s how our God answers lack. He doesn’t merely patch the gap. He overflows it.
Lack is where God steps in. An empty jar at a wedding. A cave in the wilderness. A child with nothing but a stick and a rock. Emptiness isn’t God’s obstacle — it’s His invitation.
Need and want are not the same. God never promised every luxury you desire. He promised to supply every need — and He has never once broken that promise, in a cave or in a garbage dump.
The fullest hands can be the emptiest. The rich young ruler had everything and still lacked the one thing that mattered. Possessions have a quiet way of possessing us right back.
There’s a man in Mark 10 who runs up to Jesus and drops to his knees with the best question a human can ask: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He is moral. He is obedient. He is wealthy. By every measure the world uses, he lacks nothing at all. And Jesus looks at him — Scripture is careful to say He looked at him lovingly — and says, “You lack one thing.” The man with everything was the only one there, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, who was actually poor. And it broke my heart the first time I read how the story ends: he walked away sad, holding tight to a life he couldn’t keep and still go to heaven with. Notice that Jesus never said, “and be poor for the rest of your life.” He simply told him to let go of what he held dearest at that moment — to choose between Jesus or his “stuff.”
So let me ask you this, my beloved — what do you feel like you’re lacking today? Wisdom? Money? Love? Peace? Or maybe it’s more focused than that: a forgiving spirit toward someone who hurt you, the humility to finally let something go, the courage to answer a calling you’ve been dodging. The promise was never that your bank account would overflow or that you’d never face a storm. The promise is that in the middle of the storm you will have a Shepherd — and His grace is sufficient, His love is enough. Jesus didn’t come merely to give you things. He came to give you Himself — and eternal life in heaven.
The children we serve lack things no child should ever lack — food, safety, and more often than not, a caring parent to come home to. But we’re not only filling stomachs and needs. We’re introducing them to the Shepherd who lets a person on the run — in a cave, or a dump — confidently proclaim: I lack nothing.
I’m on my seventieth lap around this world, and there is still so much to do for the glory of God and so little time to do it. Seek first the kingdom, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33).