Psalm 16:5-6 - “The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. The measuring lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, my inheritance is beautiful to me.”
I feel like the last person qualified to be writing anything on these verses. I am far from cornering the market on contentment and resting in Jesus when I want what I want.
So the following words I preach to myself and, at the same time, offer as encouragement to you if you find yourself struggling with longing.
These verses give me pause for two reasons. They are comforting to me, while convicting at the same time.
These words remind me that my life is planned by my Creator - each of my days carefully crafted so that nothing that happens to me is out of God’s control, but instead plays a part in a bigger story. I can be assured that He sees what I do not. I can rest in knowing that He has made a path and knows just how all the puzzle pieces fit together.
And yet, these verses bring to mind my striving, my discontent, the ways in which I try to find satisfaction outside of looking to Jesus.
This rings of Psalm 23:1, in which I learn that because the Lord is my Shepherd, I am not in need.
What does that practically look like in the midst of legitimate physical lack, or in the eye of a storm of desires?
It’s all about renewing my thoughts. I must allow myself to dwell on and cling to the fact that Jesus is really my only hope, since there is nothing on this earth that will hold me together as He does. All I see here cannot truly be my anchor of hope, because it is fading away (1 John 2:17).
And I have to believe that if I do not hold something here in my hand now, then it is not in the will of God for me now.
Here’s the troublesome part of that to us humans: we want to be the ones to determine what we really need. Our definition of “enough” is typically a little different than that which God says is enough, am I right? But God, who knows all, truly has the final say.
But, since that which is before me today is ordained by a patient and kind heavenly Father, that should make the circumstances not bitter to me, but instead - in the words of the psalmist - pleasant and beautiful.
And when we say that it is enough to have the Lord as our Shepherd, we mean that, on our own, we are nothing. On our own, we can do nothing. On our own, we cannot provide meaning and fulfillment and satisfaction and provisions. We have all of these things and even our every breath because of the Lord. Look at John 15:5:
“ ‘I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.’ “
This is how to find contentment in the middle…
…in the waiting…
…in the lack…
…when we feel insufficient…
…when we feel ourselves come up short time after time…
…when circumstances threaten to take us down…
…when we are impatient and doubting…
…when we are in the wilderness…
…when we feel like something’s missing…
…when we feel just so incomplete. The One who made us is the One who makes us whole through the cross. Looking to anything other than Him will prove empty and useless. That’s because our power is limited. His power is endless, all-encompassing, and more than capable to do what we need it to do.
The challenge is living like we believe that. Fortunately, we don’t have to do it alone.