Facing The Fear of "Not Enough"

God of Peace, I offer You my worries, I bring You my brokenness, and I surrender my striving. As I rest in Your presence, I receive Your peace.

I pause and pray...

Today, I am reflecting on what is certainly the most famous of all the psalms.

(Read: Psalm 23:1-6)

Writer and historian, Michael Ignatieff, not himself a man of faith, stated recently, "These are some of the most consoling words ever written." The psalm is a testimony to the experience of what it is to live a life of trust in God. It is God who lifts me up through life so that I lack nothing. Or, as The Message translation puts it: "God, my Shepherd! I don’t need a thing."

Lord Jesus, You taught Your disciples to pray, "Give us today our daily bread." May I know You always as my Shepherd and Provider. In the hard times and the good, You are with me. May my table be full, and may my cup always overflow.

I pause and pray...

Lord, I pray for someone I know who is struggling with their finances and fearful for the future. May they know Your goodness and love and Your provision always.

I pause and pray...

"If you are grieving," Michael Ignatieff writes, "Psalm 23 can help you through the night. If you are in prison, they are the words a chaplain may read out to you."* It is a favorite psalm to be read or sung at funerals, speaking as it does, in the King James Version, of "the valley of the shadow of death". But it is, at heart, a psalm about how to live well, trusting God for every provision "all the days of my life".

I pause and pray...

Lord, I yield myself to the goodness of Your plans and Your provision. When You "make me lie down in green pastures" and "lead me beside quiet waters", may I yield to Your peaceful path, trusting You for all I need as I walk in Your way. Amen.

* Michael Ignatieff, On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times (New York: Picador, 2021) p. 17.