A Beautiful Inheritance

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 16:5-6

I’ve always loved efficiency.  One of my favorite aspects of spending time with my Dad and his family is that we’re always talking about ways to improve.  The subject matter varies, but there is always an aim of greater efficiency and execution of things.  Sometimes it’s talking strategy of our favorite board game while we try and beat each other at Sequence.  Those are my some of my favorite conversations.  And then sometimes the efficiency will involve even sillier things like preparing a sandwich.  Whatever needs to be done or is being done has a more efficient way of doing it, and we’re going to find it…that’s one of the Cyr family’s mottos. 

This constant strategizing has influenced my faith significantly.  To this day, I continue to try and simplify my faith in order to maximize my usefulness, my walk that is in step with the gospel, my ability to read and comprehend the Word, and so on.  

What does any of this have to do with Psalm 16:5-6?  As a matter of fact, a lot!  I love truth.  I want to comprehend what God has revealed in His Word and apply it to my life.  But sometimes it feels overwhelming.  There is just SO MUCH.  How do I make sure that I’m not forgetting something really important for a certain area of my life or for a certain situation I may not even be facing yet?  

In part, I think the answer is by finding the verses of Scripture that are “umbrella” verses.  By that, I mean verses that can broadly cover a large portion of life and be applied in many ways with wisdom.  Psalm 16:5-6 is one of those spots for me.  

This text is serving as a corrective for me right now.  Life has been pretty rough.  There’s been a lot of disappointment, and a big part of the disappointment is that we’re in a season that should be really exciting.  That’s disappointing that life has beaten me down a bit and has really diminished the excitement I should be feeling about a lot of things.  So I get angry.  At no one in particular even.  At the root is a selfishness and sense of entitlement.  “I deserve better; I deserve to relax; I deserve an easier go of things.”  While I may not verbalize or even speak these things in my own mind, they reside in my heart.  My attitudes and actions demonstrate their constant palpitations from my inner being.  

But Psalm 16 corrects and reminds me of something that must not only reside in my heart but be controlling my heart, mind, soul, and strength.  It calls me to put all of my life in a balance.  Put all the good on one side of the scale and put all the bad and hard on the other.  And it’s not even close.  The good wins out.  In fact, some of what I naturally place on the bad side of the scale, is in fact good too.  My God is not restrained to use only certain kinds of situations for my good.  He uses it all.  And He’s been wanting to use this season of disappointment to ground me in what is true.  But I’ve bristled at that.  Sometimes life can look like a porcupine that God asks me to bear hug.  And who wants to squeeze a porcupine?  

But with the way God operates, appearances are often deceiving and the things that I want to avoid are the things God intends to use to sanctify me and refine me to resemble His Son, Jesus.  

So have my lines fallen in pleasant places?  Do I have a beautiful inheritance?  Why or why not?  And if so, how do I view the hard things in this life?  

The truth is that I could never have come to a better possession than Jesus.  I could never have anyone more trustworthy holding my lot.  I could never imagine a richer and lasting inheritance than the one gifted to me in Christ.  These things are unwavering.  They don’t ebb and flow with the storms of life.  They can’t be snatched from me.  And, if I can just put this truth into action, if I can just get it to function in my heart and mind and soul and strength, then disappointing things won’t be given the reigns.  My heart won’t be driven by disappointment, but by the objective, glorious truth of what God has done in Christ.  I want this truth blanketing my life, covering my thinking in countless situations and circumstances.  Nothing exists outside of the boundary lines that God has established for me.  So I must not take anything for granted, and I must not respond as if an intruder has entered my space.  

The Lord holds it all, and through faith I want to chose Him over and over again.  I want to embrace the prickly and disappointing things, not because they are pleasant, but because God has secured my life in the pleasant place of His salvation.  He is a constant refuge and strength.  I have no good apart from Him…and in Him, it’s all good.  

So I love Psalm 16 because it calls me to efficiency of heart and mind.  It gives me a big enough truth claim to fit all of my life into and underneath.  Nothing I face, nothing I encounter exists outside of the truth that the lines have fallen FOR ME in pleasant places; indeed I have a beautiful inheritance.  Thanks be to God through my King, Jesus Christ!