My portion

Jesus told a story in Luke 15 about a young man who said to his father, "Give me the portion that is my due"  and when he received it he left his father and spent it all.

In my reading this morning I came to a verse that made me pause with just five words.  These five words are the entirety of my thoughts this morning and perhaps my personal reflections for many days ahead.

"The LORD is my portion;" Psalms 119:57

And with those five words I am overwhelmed.  In our world we want all we can get.  We work for stuff, live for stuff, watch commercials about stuff....but this writer ignores all of that and instead claims all he wants is God.

The LORD is my portion relinquishes all claims to the stuff of the world and declares, "I just want God."  I am silenced with these words. I gasp at the profound message of these five words.  To declare, simply and directly, all I want is God is the very heart of the bible's message....it's the goal of every man or woman who really understands what life is all about.  It's the heart of it all.

Paul said this same thing in a different way in Philippians.  He wrote, 

"But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ...." 

"The Lord is my portion."  Those five words sharply focus the desires and passions of life, the passions of the heart and the way we invest everything.  Oh that I might make these five words my passion and desire!  May God alone be my portion!