Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23

by Dallas Willard

The world is a perfectly good and safe place to be.

emphasis upon our choices and habits and practices, on how we live our daily lives, and above all, on what we do with our minds.

Next to the reality of God, which is the substance and source of a life without lack, there is nothing more important to the experience of that life than keeping our minds on God as much as possible.

Dallas believed it was possible to keep our minds constantly on God and that this was the heart and soul of spiritual...

We are so thankful to believe that this is a life for us, a life without lack, a life of sufficiency.

We have all things and abound; not because I have a good store of money in the bank, not because I have skill and wit with which to win my bread, but because the Lord is my shepherd.

When we truly believe what we profess, we are set to act as if it were true. Acting as if things are true means, in turn, that we live as if they were so.

Memorization is an essential element of a life without lack.

The Lord is my shepherd. In other words, I’m in the care of someone else. I’m not the one in charge. I’ve taken my kingdom and surrendered it to the kingdom of God. I am living the with-God life. The Lord is my shepherd. And what follows from that?

I shall not want. That’s the natural result. I shall not lack anything. That’s what Jesus teaches: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness,” and everything else will be added (Matt. 6:33).

He makes me to lie down in green pastures. What kind of a sheep lies down in a green pasture? A sheep that has eaten its fill. If a sheep is in a green pasture and she’s not full, she’ll be eating, not lying down.

He leads me beside the still waters. A sheep that is being led beside still water is a sheep that is not thirsty. Jesus said to the woman at the well, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13–14).

He restores my soul. The broken depths of my soul are healed and reintegrated in a life in union with ...

He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. The effect of the restoration of my soul is that I walk in paths of righteousness on his behalf as a n...

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. A life without lack is one that carries no fear of evil. Our confidence in God soars far above wants and fears.

For You are with me. The central truth of this book is that the complete sufficiency of the life without lack is based upon the presence of God, and he is most clearly and fully present to us in Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with us.

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. I know from experience that the rod and staff represent the Shepherd’s strength and protective care.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Since I love my enemies,* I would not feast upon a delicious meal in their presence and let them stand there hungry. The abundance of God’s provision and safety in my life is so great, I would invite them to enjoy what God has prepared for me.

You anoint my head with oil. Here you might think in terms of hot showers and warm fluffy towels, things that make us feel clean, comfortable, and special, and how God makes that possible. He is not only interested in my having something wonderful to eat, but also in blessing me with a life that is full and free and powerful in him—including clothing, comfortable furnishings, joyful experiences, and deep relationships.

My cup is full! Is that what it says? No. “My cup runs over.” I have more than my cup will hold. So much that I can be as generous as my Shepherd without fear of ever running out.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. This is a description of the eternal life available to us now in the kingdom of the heavens; the abundant with-God life that comes from following the Shepherd, where we dwell and abide with God in the fullness of his life—a life in which all the promises of Christ’s gospel are realized.

Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, And the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, And there be no herd in the stalls— Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The LORD God is my strength; He will make my feet like deer’s feet, And He will make me walk on my high hills.

The experience of a life without lack depends first and foremost upon the presence of God in our lives, because the source of this life is God himself.

You are, more than anything else, a mind. That is what makes you precious in a special way.

The body is important, but the mind is all-important. And the most important thing about your mind is what it is fixed upon.

The mind, thought about in this way, is the most significant aspect of our lives because it is through our minds that we make effective contact with reality.

The ultimate freedom we have as individuals is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon and think about.

Thoughts are where we make our first movements toward God and where the divine Spirit begins to direct our will to God and his way.

We have the ability and responsibility to keep God present in our minds, and those who do so will make steady progress toward him, for he will respond by making himself known to us.

One of the most powerful elements within the realm of our min...

Living a life without lack involves recognizing the idea systems that govern the present age and its respective cultures—as well as those that constitute life away from God—and replacing them with the idea system that was embodied and taught by Jesus Christ.

The truth of the matter is that people are obsessed with themselves.

Yet there is every reason for hope if they would just stop looking at themselves and look at God instead.

When we fill our minds with the gospel, it must be in its fullness as Jesus presented and embodies it.

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.

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).

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. (Eph. 4:17–19)

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.

I interact with all the sources of power in the universe through my mind.

Of all reality, spirit is the most basic. We know this because “God is Spirit” (John 4:24).

He made us to live and to work in the domain of the mind and the spirit.

God is an invisible being who has great power and dominion over everything he created.*

God is personal. He has personality. He thinks. He wills. He feels. He values.**

God is energy.

Mind is energy. Your mind is energy.

God, being invisible, is the source of all that is visible, and we use our understanding of creation to see what cannot be seen with our eyes.

Faith, born out of experience, is the means by which the mind contacts reality. If I hope to have light in a dark room, my faith in the light switch leads me over to the light switch, which I then flip up, and I have what I hoped for: light fills the room.

Now remember, the word of God is energy. Often when you hear people talking about God creating the world they say that God created it “out of nothing.” That is actually not what the Bible teaches. The biblical doctrine is that all creation came “out of” the person of God himself, that he spoke and created matter.