I’ve spent a significant amount of time over the last several days soaking in the riches of Psalm 16 in preparation for yesterday’s All-Community Gathering with Threshingfloor. During yesterday’s conversation on this Psalm, we kept coming back to these verses:
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
you hold my lot.
The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.
Psalm 17:5-6
So often when we step back from the rush of our day-to-day activities and scan the landscape of our lives we discover that we’re far from where we thought we’d be. As we start a new week it’s worth meditating on the truths in these words, particularly for those of us who feel dissatisfied with our current lot in life.
The Lord is my chosen portion
David’s heart is set; the Lord is his chosen portion. Of all the things available to him as one of the greatest kings of Israel, the Lord was the one that he had set his heart upon.
The question for us in this sentence is, what is your chosen portion? What is the thing you have set your heart and focus on? As Jesus said to those who followed him, when we set our hearts upon – when we seek first – God and his Kingdom, everything else will be taken care of. But if we set our hearts upon the things of this world we will inevitably end up bitter and dissatisfied.
The world around us has thousands of options on offer, each promising satisfaction but ultimately failing to deliver. The Lord alone satisfies the soul. Let him be your chosen portion this morning.
The lines have fallen in pleasant places
As a result of his heart being set upon the Lord and his trust that “you hold my lot,” David is able to make the amazing declaration that “the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.”
When we look at the limits on our life, can we see the beauty in the boundaries God has placed around you? Can you see the pleasantness of your singlehood? The beauty and pleasure of parenting young children? The satisfaction of working a career that isn’t what you imagined for yourself at this age? If God is good then we must learn to declare with David, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.” (Psalm 17:6, HCSB)
In Acts 17 the Apostle Paul declares that God,
“determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us”.
Acts 17:26b-27
God has set boundary lines in your life, and they are pleasant and good. More than that – they are put in place so that you would seek his face and discover, as David writes at the end of Psalm 16, that when you are near to God you discover fullness of joy and eternal pleasure.
I have a beautiful inheritance
Not only has God graciously and lovingly marked out the boundaries and pathway of our lives, he has also shaped for us a “beautiful inheritance.”
As a result of the death and resurrection of Jesus we are now folded into the family of God and, as a result, are inheritors of all that God is and has. That, my friends, is an absolutely incredible. So much so that Paul can declare to the Corinthian church, “all things are yours…and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” (1 Cor. 3:21-22)
In Christ you’ve inherited unending life, eternal purpose, intimate friendship, and the promise of security in every moment – both in this life and beyond it.
If the Lord is your portion you can be free to delight in the current bounds of your life. If the Lord is your portion you are free from any fear of the future. Your ultimate end is to possess a beautiful inheritance that is overflowing with fullness of joy and eternal pleasure. And that is good news for a gloomy Monday morning.
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