Psalm 23:1
“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.”
Are you in the prison of “I Want”?
Do you feel better when you have more and worse when you have less? Are you always wanting something bigger? Nicer? Faster? Newer? Is your happiness always one delivery away, one accomplishment away, one new wardrobe away? Does joy come from something you deposit, drive, drink, or live in? When your happiness is based on any of these things, then you’re in the prison of “I Want”.
In Psalm 23:1, when David told us that God is his Shepherd and that there is nothing else he could want more that his Lord, he understood that what have with our relationship with God is greater than whatever else we could attain, buy, collect, stockpile, or achieve. He realized the two things that release us from the prison:
1. Your stuff isn’t yours.
2. Your stuff isn’t YOU
You can’t take it with you when you die, and your stuff doesn’t make you who you are. (In our society, more and more our stuff seems to be defining us as people, but it shouldn’t be that way at all)
Doug McKnight was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 32. Over the next 16 years, it would cost him his career, his mobility, and eventually his life. but he never lost his sense of gratitude. When his church friends asked him to compile a list of prayer requests, he responded by sending them 18 blessings for which to be grateful, and 6 prayer requests. His blessings were 3 times greater than his needs. Doug had discovered that what he had in God was greater than whatever he didn’t have in life.
Related Text:
Luke 12:15
“Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
