The Lord Is My What?

So today My one of my son's (age 6) reads me the twenty third psalm.
He gets to the "I shall not want" section and says to me, "that's not true is it dad?"

Now there was a time in my life I would have answered very quickly.
But, this is a boy who at the age of six has watched his brother fight luekemia and knows his mom's dad died when she was very young.
I was stunned by his question.

My first thought was to define for him the difference between "wanting" and "needing",
which I might add the KJV makes very difficult since it uses the word "want".
Not long after a short linguistic course, He was satisfied with the difference between wants and needs.
At which point he asked me an even tougher question.
He asked "what are needs",
The silence was awkward. I wanted to speak boldly on God's behalf and say "God will never let anything bad happen to you"
But more than that I wanted God to speak boldly to me on his own behalf.
I wanted desperately for my son to feel safe and cared for by God, on the other i've seen the depths of shit God will allow his children to go through. I couldnt tell them that God wouldnt allow his brother to get very sick, he did. I couldn't tell Him that God wouldnt allow their mom or dad to die, he might, I dont really know what God won't allow. That really scares me.
I believe he is all powerful, all knowing, and full of love. But I dont have a clue what the hell that means.

Romans 8:18-26 This is all that keeps me sane, scared but sane.

ps: NO it's not the "all things for good verse", no offense God, but that verse makes me want to hurl.


posted by Andy at 6:32 PM | |