This week I am pleased to share the following fascinating perspective from Rev. Alisan Rowland of our congregation, who was ordained just last year and has served as a hospice chaplain.
I feel I have perfected the experience of wanting. I know this because when I imagine my lottery winnings, I know how every dollar would be spent … the debts that would be paid off, the new house, the new car (and I know the details down to the make, model and color). My list of wants could go on and on, so let’s not go there. There’s a much beloved psalm, Psalm 23, that many people have taken comfort in over the years. It’s a psalm that many people have learned and memorized and one that is often used for memorial services. But a recent conversation with someone helped me to think about this psalm differently, and in a way that I find challenging. In the King James Version (KJV), and in many translations of the psalm, is the phrase “I shall not want”.
Here is the New American Standard Bible translation which is similar to the KJV. Note: I have changed the masculine pronouns to “you” consistent with our church’s preference for non-gendered or inclusive language:
Lord, You are my shepherd,
I shall not want.
You make me lie down in green pastures;
You lead me beside quiet waters.
You restore my soul;
You guide me in the paths of righteousness
For Your name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and loving kindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
I first started thinking about this psalm differently when I met a woman that I will call Alice. Alice was happily married and had a grown daughter and had been very blessed in her life. Alice in her 50s, however, had been diagnosed with a rare disease and had already lost the ability to move her arms and hands. When I arrived to visit her, she had the New International Version of Psalm 23 displayed on her computer. She said “I want to show you the verse I’ve been meditating on: ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing,’” she said. She paused, I think expecting that what she was sharing would be obvious to me, so I tried to guess. Was she trying to explain that her spirit was complete and not lacking anything? But she told me that she didn’t believe the body and the spirit were separate.
Months later I would still be reflecting on this visit with Alice and what she was trying to communicate. This woman, who had already lost the ability to play the piano, to hug someone, to move anywhere without someone else’s assistance, was telling me “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” This was not a minor difference in perspective. Alice had come to understand something that I had yet to fully grasp.
It may seem that believing that we lack nothing is impractical, and yet as a spiritual truth, this is a truth that is transformative and liberating. I invite you to consider a new way to think about Psalm 23; to see it as an invitation to live our lives without the sense of lack that drives us toward our own self-interests, but with the understanding that when we let go of fear we gain a freedom that enables us to live more fully.
We may not know exactly what the psalmist was thinking when comparing God to a shepherd, but it appears it was in giving thanks to a God who continued to meet his needs, in a way that meant he felt he lacked nothing. We might expect to feel that way as well in life when everything is going well for us. But how can we expect to feel that way when we are in physical or emotional pain, when we often are hungry or not certain how to pay our rent or make our house payment? How could Alice, who had lost the ability to do most everything, find comfort in the words “I lack nothing?”
Perhaps, for Alice it was a matter of perspective. Isn’t it true that when we focus on what we lack, all we see is what we lack? Our current life challenge seems even more difficult as we add up all our losses. And we can easily become overwhelmed if we think about every challenge we have faced, every time something didn’t go our way or our efforts seemed wasted. Once we give our negative thoughts power, it isn’t long before we are feeling hopeless and beaten. But, what happens when we start the day with the assumption that we lack nothing? What if, instead, what we have are opportunities and possibilities? The possibility that you will fall in love with someone who can know and love you in return? The opportunity to find work that makes your heart sing? The chance to make a new place into a home? The opportunity to replace the habits that harm you, with habits that rejuvenate your body and your life? What if God is offering all of us the opportunity to trust in a love that is more powerful than any challenge? What if God is offering us the opportunity to trust in ourselves as well?
I know that when I focus on what I lack, I believe that I don’t have enough to share with someone else, even when that is not really true. I know that when I focus on what I lack, all I feel is my own fear. Isn’t it ironic, too, that so often, it’s our fear that prevents us from being able to meet our needs, our fear that prevents us from believing that we have the ability to succeed? Imagine the freedom that we could feel if we could let go of that sense of lack and of the fear that holds us captive.
Adam Braun was a young man with a promising career on Wall Street when he was backpacking through a third-world developing country and came across a child begging on the street. He asked the boy if he could have anything he wanted, what would it be? When the boy answered “a pencil,” he realized how many children in our world don’t even have the opportunity for a basic education. He ended up starting a non-profit organization called Pencils of Promise, starting with just $25 in the bank. His organization has since then built 200 schools in different countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa. When his grandmother asked him why he gave up the opportunity to work on Wall Street and have such nice things, he told her that he had found his purpose. He could have focused on his own lack and pursued all he could gain for himself, but when he focused on the opportunity to provide education for children what he found was his life purpose. When we are able to let go of our fear of lack, it can transform our lives in so many ways.
This season of Lent is an opportunity, not simply to make a symbolic sacrifice or add a spiritual practice. It is an opportunity to reflect on our own perspectives about our lives. An opportunity to let go of our focus on all that we don’t yet have and what we see as our perceived failures and fears. It’s an opportunity to see and begin to realize the new possibilities in our lives that stretch out before us. It’s an opportunity to join Alice in meditating on the phrase “I lack nothing” and to hear God’s guidance for us.
