Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23

by Dallas Willard

If we limit the gospel to what Jesus did during a few days at the end of his earthly existence, we miss most of the picture. We shouldn’t reduce the saving work of Christ to his death on the cross or we will miss the fullness of God as he is in himself and as he provides for us and all his creation.

The gospel that Jesus himself proclaimed, manifested, and taught was about more than his death for the forgiveness of our sins, as important as that is. It was about the kingdom of God—God’s immediate availability, his “with-us-ness” that makes a life without lack possible. There is so much more to our relationship with God than just his dealing with our guilt and sin. Once we have been forgiven, we are meant to live in the fullness of the life that Jesus came to give us (John 10:10).

But when it comes to experiencing the sufficiency of God, we are not talking about what God can do; we are talking about what we need to do. And what we need to do is to turn our minds to God.

We can know important truths about God—his eternal power and divine nature—by paying attention to the things he has made.

It is precisely because God is like this, and because we can know that he is like this, that a life of full contentment is possible.

He is one who, out of his mere nature, pours forth life in infinite quantities that are incomprehensible, everlasting, unceasing, and will never be exhausted. That being is God!

As C. S. Lewis said, “In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.”2 Faith that interacts with God draws

directly from God and the power that is in the word of God.

Fasting is feasting upon God.

God’s glory is where his riches are found.

He dwells in magnificent abundance, and lovingly provides for our needs out of that abundance.

God is not worried that he is going to run out of something. God is beyond rich. He is overflowing with everything that is good and everything we need. He has so much that he will never run out of any of it. It is so very important to remember this when we are fretting over a perceived need. In such a time we may be tempted to think that maybe, just maybe, God is as stingy and small as we are. He is not. God loves to

give. God loves to forgive. God loves to just gush forth with his goodness (John 4:14). Nothing so delights him as giving to anyone and everyone who will receive. “For God so ...

If we do not understand the all-sufficiency of the Shepherd, we will never experience that sufficiency in relationship to him. What we need, God has—in infinite supply.

The transformation of the self away from a life of fear and insufficiency takes place as we fix our minds

upon God as he truly is.

We are going to be living on weird stuff if we draw near to God.

I am saying that there is a life in which there is no lack.

The more we place our minds on God’s greatness and self-sufficiency (“beholding . . . the glory of the Lord”), the more we will be transformed from one degree of glory to another. And because our

faces are “unveiled” (that is, they have had the lampshades removed) others will see a difference; we will radiate generosity, peace, and contentment. And the reverse is also true; as we associate with others whose faces are “unveiled” and who are growing in their experience of God’s sufficiency, their “glory” enlightens us, encouraging us in our own journeys of faith in the Shepherd.

The element

of mistrust makes it impossible for people to confidently step forward in the grace of God and realize the goodness that God intended them to have in their relationship to one another.

When we get up out of bed in the morning, among our first thoughts should be this: Lord, speak to me. I’m listening. I want to hear your voice. This is not because it’s a nice way to start the day, but because the only thing that can keep us straight is being full of God and full of his Word. If you don’t do something like this, you do not have the option of having a neutral mind.

It is the same with the kingdom of God; faith comes to us as a result of hearing the truth about that kingdom.

God is more concerned with who you are becoming than in what you can accomplish with your faith.

(Job 2:7–10)

But there are problems with propriety, not only because we tend to make bad choices and bring difficulties upon ourselves, but because things can go badly even when we do everything right.

I have known quite a number of pastors who believed that divorce was something you could never really get over. But then their children experienced it, and they were liberated from that belief. This is not hypocrisy. It is the transformation of their faith.

They went through a painful process and came to understand how the blessing of God goes well beyond failure, disappointment, and tragedy.

The word faith is a real problem in our time. It has become “respectable.” How many churches do you know that have the word faith in their name? How many with the word trust? Trust is sloppy. It’s out there on the street, in the field of battle. Trust is where Satan and God are struggling for the soul of man! But faith . . . faith is quite nice, isn’t it? Very prim and decent—proper even.

It is trust that puts you in contact with God so you can draw upon his unlimited and inexhaustible resources.

Unfortunately, many folks have their faith lined up in such a way that they do not need to rely on God. They do not need to trust God. They have a proper faith in terms of what they need to believe to go to

heaven when they die, but they hope that God is never going to put them in a position of needing to actually ...

What remains is the kingdom of God that cannot be moved, and by trust, and trust alone, we enter it.

The life without lack is known by those who have learned how to trust God in the moment of their need. In the moment of need. Not before the moment of need, not after the moment of need when the storm has passed, but in the moment of need.

For it is in that moment, when everything else is gone, that you know the reality of God. That moment may be a blood-stained one, as

with the faithful martyrs of Hebrews 11 or the stoning of Stephen from Acts 7, but it will ...

I understand, but a life without lack is all

about knowing the unlimited sufficiency of God in the moment of need. When you’re betrayed, abandoned, lied about, and scandalized; when you are sick with a fatal disease; when your finances are going down the drain; when you see your loved one walk through the doorway of hell; that is the moment to trust. And in trusting you will know God. Your point of desperation

will likely not involve being sawn in two or wandering about destitute in sheepskins, but it might. Regardless, when you have nowhere else to turn except to God, and you turn to him, your faith of desperation will meet the fullness of God, and you will taste the li...

Job saw the greatness of God, and in that vision he was able to rest in the all-sufficiency of Yahweh.

This

is why we need to live in clear view of the cross. When we look at what Christ did for us on the cross and keep that at the center of our vision, there are not many things that will bother us, or even matter at all. When we realize that Christ went willingly to the cross on our behalf, trusting in the greatness of his Father, it casts a transf...

we take

our minds off ourselves and place them

on...

He simply said, “I’ve seen God, and I’ve seen myself.” We cannot truly see ourselves until we see God, but as long as our eyes are fixed on ourselves, we cannot see God. We must focus on God if we are to know the sufficiency of God.

Behold the heart’s confession of the faith of sufficiency: “God has dealt graciously with me, and I have enough.” The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

You should not try to do this in your own power. Seek the Lord and wait for him to show up. Set time aside to devote yourself to prayer and other spiritual disciplines that will strengthen your faith and prepare you to receive from him. Listen for God when you pray. Watch for him and wait on him throughout the day. If the Lord does not show up when and how you think he should, you must not be upset with him or with yourself. Just keep seeking. When we begin to seek the Lord, some things must change—some outside of us and some inside of us—before we can bear the vision of God. These changes can take time, and God, in his mercy, gives them time.

“I heard about it with my ears.” That is where faith begins, but not where it ends.