"I Shall Not Want"

Nearly every time I hear or see the phrase “I shall not want,” a memory pops into my head, a picture really, of me in a second grade classroom at Chinese Baptist Church of Houston for Sunday School. Along with the Lord’s prayer, the twelve disciples, and a few other bible verses (maybe the 10 commandments too), memorizing Psalm 23 was one of THE big goals for completing second grade Sunday School. Somehow, by the grace of God, my 2nd grade self could muster the focus to complete the task and to this day I probably wont be able to disassociate Psalm 23 with the image of a cute sheep laying down on some comfortable-looking, forest green grass, with a river running through it.

Fast forward to eighteenth (incoming nineteenth?) grade, and as “Sunday School” has surely gotten tougher, and as life has really become an unpredictable whirlwind of joys and sorrows, I can surely say a simple truth that I used to think was so trite/meaningless: God is good. Might’ve taken awhile, but I’m only now beginning to be able to trace His goodness like a hidden thread over my life. And it gives me hope, an assurance for His provision tomorrow. He has, is, and always will be good to me. Even, and perhaps especially, at the costs of what I want most … “When I taste Your goodness I shall not want.”

"From the need to be understood
From the need to be accepted
From the fear of being lonely
Deliver me O God
Deliver me O God
And I shall not want, I shall not want
When I taste Your goodness I shall not want
When I taste Your goodness I shall not want."