You Are My Portion: Psalm 16 Song

Welcome to Psalms Reflections on Scattered Moments. Today we come to Psalm 16. We begin with a question. What if God answers your prayers today by giving you nothing but Himself? No change in circumstances. No sudden solution. No explanation for the thing you cannot understand. No guarantee that tomorrow will unfold exactly as you hope. Trust God. Would He be enough? David begins Psalm 16 with a prayer. Protect me, God, for I take refuge in you. There is trouble somewhere beyond these words. David needs protection. Something is uncertain. Something has driven him into the refuge of God. But David doesn't spend much time describing the danger. Instead, he begins describing his treasure. He says, Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing. You hold my future. You are my portion. It's an unusual way to speak about God. A portion is what has been allotted to you. It's what is placed on your plate. It's what you receive as your share. And David looks at everything that could be given to him and says, God, you are my share. The gift is not simply what God gives. The gift is God Himself. We spend so much time, so many moments of our lives asking for other portions. Give me wealth. Give me strength. Give me enough time. Give me enough success. Give me enough health. Give me enough security to know that everything is going to be alright. And those aren't necessarily bad things. But Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread. Psalm 16 invites us to something even deeper. What if we looked into the cup God has placed before us and discovered that the greatest blessing in the cup was his presence. Lord, you are my portion. When I don't have the answers I want, you are my portion. When the future seems uncertain, you are my portion. When something I treasured has slipped through my fingers, you are my portion. When I look around and wonder why someone else seems to have received more. Some boundaries are painful. There are places we cannot go anymore. Things we cannot do anymore. People we cannot bring back. Dreams that didn't happen. Doors that closed. Bodies that changed. Seasons that ended before we were ready. David certainly knew something about difficult boundaries. So perhaps his joy isn't found in having the perfect boundaries. Perhaps his joy comes from knowing who is inside them with him. I have a beautiful inheritance, he says. Why? Because God is there. David says that even in the night, God counsels him. I will bless the Lord who counsels me even at night when my thoughts trouble me. I love that honesty, because nighttime has a way of making everything louder. A question you manage to avoid all day suddenly sits beside you, in the darkness, the worry becomes larger, the regret becomes sharper, the future becomes more uncertain. But David says that even there, even at night, God is present. I always let the Lord guide me. Because he is at my right hand. I will not be shaken. Not because David has figured everything out. Not because every enemy has disappeared. Not because every prayer has been answered. But because God is near. You are my portion. And then this psalm begins looking beyond today. David says, My heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices. My body also rests securely. For you will not abandon me. You will not allow your faithful one to see decay. Centuries later, Peter would stand in Jerusalem on that day of Pentecost and quote these words. He would say that David was looking beyond himself, beyond his own grave, beyond death itself. He was pointing us toward Jesus, the one who entered the grave and walked out. And suddenly those words, You're my portion, become even more beautiful. Because if Christ is our portion, death cannot take our inheritance. Everything else we possess eventually leaves our hands, our accomplishments, our possessions, our titles. Even these bodies we inhabit, but Jesus remains. The risen Christ is our portion, and because he lives, our inheritance cannot perish. David ends. You reveal the path of life to me. In your presence is abundant joy. At your right hand are eternal pleasures. Notice where the path leads. Not merely to better circumstances, not merely to answered questions, not merely to a longer life, and to his presence. Maybe that's what the whole psalm has been teaching us. God is not merely the one who gives us treasure. God is the treasure. He is our portion in the morning. He is our portion when the boundary lines confuse us. He is our portion in the middle of the night. He is our portion when tomorrow frightens us. And when our final tomorrow comes, he will still be our portion. So now perhaps we can loosen our grip on all the things we think we must have in order to be content and simply say, Lord, you are my portion. If you give me blessing, you are my portion. If you ask me to wait, you are my portion. If you lead me somewhere I did not expect, you are my portion. And when this path finally leads me home, you will still be my portion. Because the greatest gift you could give me is yourself. And in your presence there is abundant joy.

I choose to seek your face. You are my portion, my cup, my counsel, my rock. You are my teacher by my side, my inheritance, my guy.