Yet Lackest Thou *One Thing*

In the Jewish Commentary on the Torah, the question is posed: If God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, then what does He lack. The answer they came up with is that what God lacks are limitations. There is nothing that God can't do, nothing He doesn't know, nowhere He isn't present. God has no limits and that is what He lacks. A similar conundrum troubled the heart of a young rich man. He was wealthy, a leader in the community, and even a moral and righteous man. He had money, a clear conscience, health, youth, in short, everything. He asked the Son of God what he lacked yet. What was missing? He had everything he could think of but was there still more? "Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing," (Luke 18:22). From a certain point of view, the Savior's answer is another example of the verbal jiu jitsu employed by the commentators on the Torah. Just as God who can do everything lacked limitations, the rich young man who had everything lacked one thing. What was holding the rich young man back was all of his many, many things getting in the way and distracting him from that One Thing. As long as he had that safety net of all of his wealth and riches, his power and influence, he could never truly love the Lord with all of his heart, might, mind and strength. Joseph Smith taught "a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has the power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation." God neither needs nor desires for us all to live vows of poverty. But Christ was asked an honest and sincere question by a young man who truly wanted to know what was holding him back. If we have a million or a thousand or even two things, then what we lack is that one thing that we must hold fast to and follow as if our very lives and our immortal souls depended upon it. If we have dozens of pearls, then how will we remember which is that Pearl of Great Price? The answer to the young rich man's question wasn't one more thing to add to his already impressive collection. The answer was that he lacked One Thing that would make him forget about all of the other things. Just as God lacks limitations, Christ was inviting the rich young man to give up all of the things, and the thing he would give up last of all would be his limitations, or his ability to lack. Christ is the Living Waters, and whosoever drinks of the waters that He gives shall never thirst again, shall never want again, shall never lack again. Once we have sacrificed all, we make room for the One Thing, even Jesus Christ, with Whom we will never lack or be limited by anything again.