You will not lack anything
When the hope of your life disappears
INGRID HERRERA
When you lose everything that was important to you
When the pain climbs over the joy
When the night surrounds and you feeling fear
he has a promise to you:
You will not lack anything
Even if the night of death reigns
You will not lack anything
Even if the enemies are laughing
and the shadows fall
He holds you in his hand
He is with you
There’s nothing you lack
And you think these are all empty words
for where is God who loves you when despair controls you
And you ask about God’s goodness
When in the valley of darkness, you can’t see anymore
Just believe he said:
Maybe he doesn’t give you what you want
But his table is set, he just wants you to come
Turn your gaze today
of all that scares you
to the one who gives hope
and be certain:
Sister，When the hope of your life disappears, how do we find inner support and strength?
Life is hard sometimes. All folks must face this serious course in their lives.
The text of this song is a meditation about Psalm 23. Psalm 23 says:
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
Further in the Psalm, David says:
4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,[1] I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
He refers to an experience he had with the Lord before.
So, David received his strength by looking back how the Lord protected him before and that should be our strategy, too, when the enemy wants to tell us, that we don t have enough, that God will not provide and so on.
I wrote the song, when I had a time, in which I seemed to lack a lot, because I had a lot of costs when I came to Chile and my money was not enough.
But it was a miracle that the Lord provided day by day the next lunch.
For example, friends came to my house and offered me something to do on the computer and they paid me for this work and much other things that provided some rice and, in my garden, I had avocado which were ready to eat.
After losing everything that was important to you, how do we redefine our values and goals?
Life is not always easy and we can come in situations, that are harder than hard.
The problem is our reaction. Are we still confiding in God and are we like Job who exclaimed in the darkest moment of suffering: I know that my redeemer lives!
Or will we turn away from God and react with bitterness and a heart of stone, which does not allow the Holy Spirit to enter and take control over the situation.
When pain outweighs joy, how do we find light in the darkness?
The first thing is remembering, as I said. Remember the good times when God showed his power in your life.
The next thing is confessing. We live in a spiritual battle and the king of darkness, the devil wants that we go away from God. So it is important to believe in our heart and confess with our mouth, that Jesus is our redeemer and our Lord.
And it is important to read in the bible for to get orientation in a dark situation. There are more than Psalm 23, all written by people like you and me who had pain and struggle in their life or who wanted to glorify God for a survived bad situation.
When faced with fear and despair, how do we believe in God’s love and support? People sometimes feel extremely despair in their lives. Like current Israel and Palestine conflicts, for the poor normal Palestine citizens. They seem that lose the hope for living.
Could you give some tips for these poor people?
When I had despair in my life, I just lived day by day, confiding, that my father in heaven will help me somehow and I relaxed with writing worship songs and believing, that he will intervene.
To the people in that Israel Palestine conflict I would tell first of all, to the fathers of both sides, stop hating to neighbor and stop to tell your children that they have to hate their neighbors.
This conflict we have nowadays is a harvest, because through generations they told their children already when they were able to hear and speak, that their neighbor is their enemy and now these children are adults and go in war.
But there are a lot of innocent people, too, on both sides. I only can tell them, seek the God of Love and pray that he protects you day by day.
When enemies mock and shadows fall, how do we maintain unwavering faith and courage?
Who or which of thing is your current enemy now?
We have already told in earlier podcast, that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the kingdoms of the darkness who reign over this earth now a day.
The earth is like a land which has an owner. We decide if we let the God of Light and Love, the creator God of the Bible is the owner this land and govern it, or if we reject the God of Love by calling sin for God and let the devil and the fallen angels in the air govern this land.
My enemy is clearly the kingdom of sin and darkness. Because they lure the first humans with the consequence that sin came into this world.
We have to read the bible very good: It says: Trough Adam, sin came into this world. Sin has already been there before Adam was, when Lucifer sinned in the area which was for the angels. But he lures Adam and Eve and came into the world, and that is why he and no other human being is my enemy.
In real life, how do we translate faith into action and strength? Pls make some easy examples for our audience.
Faith is the substance of things waited for; the evidence of things not seen.
In other words: I expect something to come, that I still cannot see.
When I wrote the song, I still was alone and had some economic problems because of high and unwanted costs.
I had faith, that I will handler my economic situation and not have to starve and I had faith, that God will not leave me alone forever.
2 years later, I had enough to live and I met my husband. So God responded to my faith, and I was happy about it.
When we can no longer see hope, how do we believe in God’s goodness and grace?
Sister， as you told me before 10 years ago. You had a difficult time in hospital. But
You overcame that difficult time in the end. Could you describe the details in that hard time to our audience? Hope through your real-life experience could bring more and more people strength and power to face the difficulties.
10 years ago, I had got a dehydration and in hospital I fell into coma and it looked like that I will die there. But it was a miracle, that I awake and the normal would have been, that my brain inches and gets a damage, but I could leave hospital without permanent damage.
It is always fine, when things on earth go well, but the don t always. About 30 years ago, two friends of mine, who were Christians, too, died in a boat accident. It was such a shocking experience, that it is still like it has been yesterday.
But as Christians, our hope should not end on the graveyard. The bible makes a clear difference about those who are sleeping – it refers to those who believed and died in Jesus Christ – and the death, those who did not receive Jesus Christ in their lifetime and who have to appear before the big white throne at the end of the time.
So, when the bible talks about, that we don t lack anything, it talks not only about material goods, it says, that we are blessed with all spiritual goods, too.
