You were listening to the Ballardy Bible Study.

My name is Aaron McManus and I'm here with my father, Irwin Raphael McManus.

Good morning, Dad.

Hey, good morning.

Our verse of the day is Psalm 231.

Over the next six days, we're going to break down this chapter in Psalms and I'm very excited so Psalm 231 the

lord is my shepherd I lack nothing those absolute statements always make me so nervous because they're

absolutely true and they're absolutely impossible to experience in that sense because when you say

the lord is my shepherd i like nothing if you're cynical at all you go wait a minute i lack so much

you know and uh you you might be listening go wait a minute i lack a place to live right now i lack a job

i lack a girlfriend i like right now. I lack a job. I lack a girlfriend.

I like a husband. I, you know, I lack financial security. I lack a vision for my future.

And so my mind immediately goes to everything I lack or everything that could potentially be listed

as what we lack.

And those things can actually steal from us the power of this statement.

It's a posture of the heart.

The Lord is my shepherd is the truth that actually has to prevail.

The next part, I lack nothing, cannot be experienced if you don't have a relationship with God or He is your shepherd. Because what immediately came to my mind is, you know, Aaron,

when you were three years old and left to yourself, you lacked everything. You know, you're not employable. You couldn't defend yourself.

You couldn't, you know, provide for yourself. You couldn't feed yourself. There's nothing

practical in terms of the human experience that you did not lack. But because you had a relationship with me and your mom, you didn't,

in that sense, lack anything. And you had a place to live, you had a bed to sleep in,

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