My Portion Forever

"Whom have I in heaven but you?  And earth has nothing I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." -Psalm 73:25-26 NIV


I can't say it any better than the psalmist said it.  As I studied the names of God last week, and specifically looked at His names of sufficiency, these verses, while I have read them before, stopped me in my tracks.  After my breath returned and my eyes were tear free again, I could do nothing but sit and praise.

He is all I need, all I desire, and He is more than enough. 

I know that the above statement is not always how I live, though.  I find myself desiring lesser things.  Things that catch my eye, things that seem like they would make my life so much easier, things that if they worked out just right, well then, THEN! I could really be happy.  Then what happens?  Well, these "things"  are just that: things.  They break, they don't work the way I thought they would,  they don't deliver the happiness that was promised, or the happiness is short lived.  Sure enough, each and every time I left wanting again.  Needing again.  Empty again.  Then something catches my eye.  'Round and 'round we go.

I loved the way Mary Kassian puts it in her study Knowing God by Name she says this about seeking joy apart from God, "Therefore the problem with humans is not that we have pleasure-seeking tendencies but rather that our value judgements are so badly skewed.  We stake our hearts on things of such low worth that our joy is thin, fragile, and easily shattered."

C.S. Lewis also wrote about this subject in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses:

"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far too easily pleased."

As much as I am embarrassed to admit it, I too seem to think I can find delight in making mud pies when a beach vacation is being offered.  And to make things worse, I get frustrated when my mud pies just weren't all that I hoped they would be.

I set my hope in lesser things. 

I've counted on my joy being complete in things of low worth. 

I should not be surprised at all that I have been disappointed.

However. 

There is something more.  Someone who is enough.  And not just enough, but more than enough. 

Overflowing.

Abundant.

With Him and in Him I "Shall not want" -Psalm 23.

He is "my portion forever."