A Little Short
“Suppose the fifty righteous are lacking five, will you destroy the whole city because of five?” Genesis 18:28
Are Lacking – David knows the God who provides. Abraham knows the God who permits. “I shall not want” uses the same verb as “fifty lacking five”. What does this tell us about the character of God? It tells us that the One who can provide all that we need is also the One who can deal with all of our failures. Abraham’s negotiation to save the city of Sodom is a remarkable story of God’s true mercy. It is Abraham who stops negotiating at ten righteous men, not God. Have you ever wondered what might have happened if Abraham had kept going until he reached just one righteous man? What we learn is that God bends over backwards to be merciful to those who deserve judgment. Our lack does not affect His provision.
Does your life come up a little short? Mine does. It’s not what I thought it would be. I am not all the man I wanted to be. My struggles are more than I hoped they would be. I am the one lacking. I’m just a little short of where I should be and that little gap is all that is necessary to make my life much harder than I wanted. If I lived in Sodom, I would have needed Abraham to keep on negotiating.
Do you suppose that David remembered Abraham’s conversation with the God who lacks nothing when he used this word in his most famous psalm? How could he not have thought about it? David lived in Sodom too. His life didn’t measure up. But His God did. The God who lacks nothing is able to provide the man who lacks everything. The God who has no shortfall of mercy is able to forgive the man who has considerable shortfall of righteousness.
Have you ever noticed that when one part of your life is just perfect, some other part seems to start collapsing. We all seem to have kaw-sere (lack) built into our lives. And for good reason. Human being (the state of being a human) is dependent being. We are not designed to have it all together. We are designed to be in need. That’s why David’s psalm resonates so deeply within us. Our eternal hope is to “not want” but our temporal destiny is to be lacking.
Is your heart bent on removing the lack in your life? Have you pushed yourself to the limit trying to bridge the gap? Do you know the angst of “shortfall”? Then go to the God of lo’ ekaw-sere. Throw yourself entirely on the God of “not want”. Abandon to Him. Any bridge you build will still not reach other side. After all, you’re only human. lo’ ekaw-sere is an attribute only of the divine.
