What Are You Lacking?

Every day our senses are flooded with thousands of messages. Commercials, Facebook ads, videos, pictures, products, newspapers and magazines, TV shows and films – all fighting for our attention. Most try to attract our attention to the newest product we can’t live without or convince us our lives aren’t complete without that new car. Even the ads for online dating sites promise they can help you find that special someone missing from your life.

From home improvement to vacations to romance to food – the main idea or strategy behind these messages is to point out what you don’t have in your life. To show you what you’re missing and to provide a way to help you get it. The focus is almost always on what you lack.

Need to get your body beach ready by summer? You don’t have a perfectly sculpted body – maybe try the gym or that new diet.

Still don’t have that special someone? You aren’t dating, you aren’t engaged or married or any of that – maybe it’s time to try online dating or that new perfume to attract the perfect someone.

Do you have the latest gadget to make your life easier than ever before? How are you supposed to stay connected or stay on track with everyone else if you’re one of the only ones without the new _____ [phone/watch/tablet/laptop].

The focus is on what you don’t have, how you’re not ______ enough – on what you lack. With that at the forefront of your mind it is much easier to slip into negative and pessimistic thinking, self-criticism, materialism, etc. Your gaze is downward, your line of sight so consumed by your empty hands that you can’t see anything else.

That is where my focus was the other day as I began my morning. As I was talking with the Lord, my mind was racing with the things I don’t have (some of these seem silly, trust me, I know):

• a vehicle

• more patience

• closer, deeper relationships with certain people

• a boyfriend

• money to pay off the rest of my student loans

• fancy business clothes

• my own place

• a puppy

It led me to this weighty place of sadness and “if only.” Papa let me sit it in for a little while and let it out, but it was no mistake my Psalm of the day was David’s famous 23rd Psalm. Usually I brush over the first couple verses and get to the part about quiet waters and refreshment and that’s where I thought I would land once again that morning.

I didn’t make it past verse one:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.”

Those words washed over me once, twice, then a third time. I am His. He is my good shepherd and in Him, I lack nothing. Nothing is missing. There is no “not enough.” Another way to say it is I have it all. I have everything I could ever want or need in Him. He is more than enough.

Maybe this is why so many of the Psalms and Scriptures set an example of what it looks like to lead a life of thankfulness and implore us to do the same!

“I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.” Psalm 34:1

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 4:17

Thanksgiving and praise shift the focus off of ourselves and onto Him. Instead of looking down and seeing what we don’t have by the world’s standards, we look up and see His face and are reminded of all He is doing and has already done.

There is NOTHING we lack!

When I began to soak in this truth, turning my focus back on Him, my heart swelled with joy and peace! I allowed that truth to sink in as I began to declare things I was thankful for, things I had seen Him do, all He’s given me, and all that remains available to me through Him! Nothing short of abundance. Some of those things on my list are desires of my heart, but the thing is, the abundant life He promised doesn’t waver whether those things come to pass or not. It is constant and full regardless. Take a moment and let that soak.

From His fullness we have received grace upon grace. (John 1:16)

In Him we have abundant life. (John 10:10)

He is more than enough. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

We need to allow this truth to resonate in our hearts and minds daily, allowing it to renew us and fill us. If you catch yourself praying and focusing on what you’re lacking, turn it back to praise. Turn it back to the One who is more than enough and thank Him for that. Thank Him that there’s nothing you could ever face that He can’t handle. Spoiler alert: it is finished! He’s already won!

I encourage you to go soak in Psalm 23 and meditate on that first verse for awhile and the magnitude of that truth. Then, work your way through the rest of it, praying through it, responding with thankfulness and praise.

So then, the question shifts from what are you lacking to what is overflowing in your life?

What are some of the things you have in Him, because of Him that you are thankful for?