Picture a fence. Nothing fancy. A few wooden boards encircling the edge of a field. The field is on good ground. It’s level and green. The grass is a bit overgrown, but there’s room to run around and there’s fresh water. It’s a beautiful gift to behold.
Now, put a horse in that field. She is not grazing on the field’s grass. She’s not enjoying all that room to move around. She is standing right up against the fence rail, head pushed all the way through, neck stretched as far as it will go, looking on the other side.
You have seen that before, whether you realize it or not. Grass under her feet. Beautiful location. The whole time, she’s still reaching.
That was me. And it took me a long time to be able to find language for it and actually say it out loud. Let me put it this way… I was standing in the middle of the field that God gave me, counting up everything He had given everybody else.
I couldn’t see the beautiful gifts I had right in front of me. Most people would call them blessings. Some of them things I prayed for by name. Yes. I asked God for them specifically, out loud, repeatedly. And then, I got them. And I turned my little self around and put my head right back through the fence.
I have been in a season where God has been turning my eyes around. Back toward Him. Back toward healing. My home. My husband. My children. Myself. And it has been a slow, uncomfortable turn. Much more work that I expected because looking over the fence was not a small habit. It was deep. It was reinforcing a whole lot of things that I believed about God that were not true.
So we are spending the month of October on contentment. And I want to start with a familiar passage that just has not let me go.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. – Psalm 23:1
Psalm 23 was written by a shepherd who became a king. What’s interesting is how he doesn’t write about being a shepherd. He writes about being a sheep. And we commonly remember, “I shall not want.” But I think it does something to us modern readers. It’s almost like this rule to stop wanting. Contentment isn’t a desire that you can just turn on and off. A lot of us have felt the tension of wanting things that haven’t arrived and feeling bad about it.
I think that’s why reading it in the CSB, “The Lord is my shepherd; I have what I need.” made something click for me. It shifted my focus to the source of the supply. Because God is who He is, I am not short. I am not without. And when you take time to sit with that, it changes everything because wanting is not the sin. Believing we’ve been shorted by God is.
What I’m saying is you can desire a thing and still be content. You can want a husband, a baby, a house, a different season, a body without pain that cooperates with you (hello aging back and knees!), and not be in sin for one second of it. What moves you from contentment is not the want, it’s the verdict you hand down about God underneath the want. The one that says He came up short with you. That HE gave the good portion to somebody else and left you with crumbs.
I want you to notice something else about that verse. The first half. The LORD is my shepherd. The sufficiency is not located in the field. It is located in who is standing in the field with you. I keep circling back to Exodus, where God gives His name as I AM WHO I AM. He is self-existing. HE is self-defining. He does not come from anything and He does not run out. And if HE can create something out of nothing, then nothing is a threat to Him the way that it is a threat to us.
Which means that sometimes the best thing He has for you is a season of lack and it’s not because He is withholding. Psalm 84:11 says, “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” I truly believe that. And sometimes the good thing is empty hands. Sometimes the good thing is whatever makes you look up and focus on Him.
Paul knew this very well. In Philippians 4, he says he has learned to be content in whatever circumstance, and the word he uses pushes back on the stoics, those who believed in self-sufficiency. Paul places Christ at the center. He can do all things, whether he is full or empty, abounding or in need, because of who he is connected to. He is not the source. He is attached to the Source.
And notice he says he learned it. It was not native to him either.
In this season, contentment has not looked like shopping or wanting less. It has looked like putting my hand to the plow in the field that I prayed for… that I was already standing in… and digging up some beliefs about God that were not true.
Where God has you, there is goodness there. Because He is in it, and He does not come up short.
So pause for a moment and ask yourself honestly. Where have you been standing with your head through the fence wishing for different circumstances? What desires have caused you to believe a lie about God? Questioning His goodness, kindness, faithfulness towards you?
What I’m saying is you can desire a thing and still be content. You can want a husband, a baby, a house, a different season, a body without pain that cooperates with you (hello aging back and knees!), and not be in sin for one second of it. What moves you from contentment is not the want, it’s the verdict you hand down about God underneath the want. The one that says He came up short with you. That HE gave the good portion to somebody else and left you with crumbs.I want you to notice something else about that verse. The first half. The LORD is my shepherd. The sufficiency is not located in the field. It is located in who is standing in the field with you. I keep circling back to Exodus, where God gives His name as I AM WHO I AM. He is self-existing. HE is self-defining. He does not come from anything and He does not run out. And if HE can create something out of nothing, then nothing is a threat to Him the way that it is a threat to us.
Which means that sometimes the best thing He has for you is a season of lack and it’s not because He is withholding. Psalm 84:11 says, “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” I truly believe that. And sometimes the good thing is empty hands. Sometimes the good thing is whatever makes you look up and focus on Him.
