To lack no good thing

I was talking with an older woman at family camp this past week; I asked her if there was a verse that she was leaning on through her season of suffering (her answer was Psalm 103) and I wanted to share the one that stands out to me lately.

Psalm 34:10 “The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.”

To me this profoundly comforting. So many time in my seasons of suffering, loss and affliction, I find myself grieving. I grieve losses of persons, dreams, hopes, comforts, possibilities, dignity, strength, voice, relationship, health...whatever in those moments has been removed from me. And yet, as I stand before the Lord; seeking Him, looking to Him, clinging to Him, weeping to Him...poured out and raw before Him...I am confronted with this lovely truth in Psalm 34:10 and I know: No matter what I have lost in this world, I will leave my posture of prayer lacking “no good thing.”

Young lions are strong, powerful, full of possibility and life. They face their futures on top of the food chain and victories lie before them. Physically speaking, I do not relate. But this verse says, even they fail, even they need, even they will go without.

But I, in all my clumsiness and weakness, certainly qualify for the second half of this verse.

The word “seek” here is translated from the word “Darash,” which means to go to a place, to frequent it, to tread a place with your feet making a path, to go to one in prayer, to implore the aid of, to resort to.

This describes my walk with Jesus through my suffering. I have tread a path to Him in my need; I have crawled that path, run that path, trudged that path, laid upon that path, walked that path. I have frequented it; day after day or moment after moments...whatever is required. I have cast myself upon the Lord in my seeking; acknowledging Him as my Hope and my Help.

And this is why this verse brings me such comfort. Because no matter what my situations, circumstances or sin have robbed me of, they have no power to take from me even ONE good thing. The Lord is mine; all that He has promised me will come to me. And the losses in this life, the suffering, and even the strength of the lion are under His feet.