“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…”

In consultation with a good friend who is a senior executive of a large company he was recounting about an employee who approached him wanting to to be transferred to a new job after having only been in the position for a year.  This employee said to him, “I want a new job that is going to challenge me”.  My friend asked his employee what about their current role did they not find challenging as according to him this employee was only doing a good job and and was meeting some, but not all of their objectives and therefore had not yet earned an above target or great rating.  The response from the employee was without substance or rationale other than there was a “want” to do something different.  What my friend saw was an employee who had their success standards at the wrong level. The employee defined their success as having done the job.  The boss defined success as mastering the work and exceeding expectations.  As you can imagine, it was not a fruitful conversation and ended with the employee not getting their “want” fulfilled.  How often we end up in these conversations where the “wants” are mismatched and no one walks away happy or satisfied.  How might we turn the conversation around to not what “I want” but instead, what “others want” to see if we can’t find how best to meet everyone’s needs.

How can we “want” when all has been given to us that we need?  David’s most well-known Psalm starts with teaching us that when we have the almighty shepherd that we shouldn’t have any wants. The danger of a want is that we mix it up with our needs and then we miss God’s blessing.  What is it that we could sit and write down and define as the difference in our wants and needs.  We would be well served to know the difference so that we don’t end up one of those people at work and home who is all about our “wants”.

Reference: Psalm 23:1