NOT THE PASTURE By Aleele Paago

Read: Gen 16:6-16
I shall not want

The sheep here declares his sufficiency. This sufficiency is dependent on the fact that it is the Lord that is leading and providing for it.
Remember we have established that you have the option of living two lives here on earth: your godly life (the one God has scripted for you) or your ungodly life (not necessarily a sinful life but it is a life not in sync with the original script). I shall not want because my Shepherd is leading me to the place of provision as in my script.

This question of provision is so critically central to the psalm. Every sheep is provided for. Why then are some sheep better off than others. Why are some sheep poor? Is this provision just talking about spiritual needs or does it include material needs? Even when we look at it simply in spiritual terms why are some sheep more endowed, more effective, more impactful than others in their spiritual endowments?

Look at the life of Hagar for a moment. In today’s passage, Sarah dealt heavily with her and she ran out of Abraham’s house trying to go back to her country Egypt. Along the way, at the site of a well, an angel appeared to her and consoled her. Instructing her to go back to her master’s home. Hagar didn’t have a say in the events of her life. She wasn’t party to the decision to become her master’s concubine. It was a decision Sarah took on her behalf. Was that her script? Yes. Did it remove the hardships? No.

Compare this to the event of Hagar’s life in Gen 21:9-21 After the birth of Isaac, Sarah again insisted that Ishmael must be thrown out of her household. Abraham loved his son and objected to the idea. But God intervened and asked Abraham to eject mother and child. Now with the cover of the family life taken away, Ishmael faced certain death in the hot wilderness. His mother abandoned him to go weep a distance away for she couldn’t bear to see her son die. When she cried, God called from heaven and opened her eyes to a well of water right where she was sitting.

Was the well there before Hagar cried? May be, may be not. For God could just have created it at that moment for her to see.
What was at stake in each of these instances was the life of Ishmael, that is the sheep that we must look at. Was he in need? Sure. But because this was the script of his life, he was never overwhelmed. The script has made provision for his godly life. Had Hagar not gone back at the first instance, Ishmael would have a very different story. He wouldn’t be the great man he grew to become.

Bottomline is this, you must stay on the script of your life to stay within reach of your supply all the time.

List three instances in your past you suffered severe lack, was it because you were not at the right place God intended you to be or was it because you were relying so much on your humanity – your relationships (eg parents or business contacts) than on God? Hagar thought without Abraham she would be dead, but her source was God not Abraham.