Meditation on the Text of the Week

Resolute Before the Coming Year

The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
Thou dost support my lot.
The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;
Indeed my heritage is beautiful to me.
Psalm 16: 5—6

In this—as in so many of the Psalms—David contrasts his life, its course and prospect, with that of the wicked who know not God and despise Him.

He touches upon the essence of blessedness for the Christian: to know and to have the Lord as our God. Nothing in this life compares or comes anywhere near to touching this. The sheer goodness of the Living God flows over and engulfs the lives of His children.

David is conscious that his life has been falling out as part of a great plan. The course of his life has been given to him by Another; it has not been determined by himself. His life is therefore characterised as an inheritance. This is a foreign notion to many in our rootless, lost world. Former generations spoke of one being born with a silver spoon in one's mouth, or on the wrong side of the tracks. These expressions pointed to a realities by which one's life was shaped and conditioned. We did not ask for it; it was done to us—but shaped by it we inevitably were. These realities became our inheritance or the cup from which we had to drink.

David, however, has in mind a reality far more profound. Before he ever came forth, the Lord knew him and set His love upon him. Therefore, his inheritance, his cup was the Lord Himself. Nothing in this world could compare or compete with such blessedness.

Because he has inherited the Lord Himself, all of his life—despite its struggles, tumults, degradations, sufferings, and successes—has been undergirded and “undertoned” by blessing and goodness. David was later to write: “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”. The Lord has supported his lot—that is, what has fallen out in the circumstances of life. The lines of that inheritance have been traced out in pleasant places. As he contemplates the course of his life in God's hand he says that his heritage has been one of beauty.

We come now to the commencement of another year; we do so in remembrance of Advent—the coming of the One who has gathered our histories, our inheritances, our lots, our cups into His hands. We therefore look back and testify with our father, David (who, by God's grace in Christ to us Gentiles, has himself become part of our inheritance and heritage) that our lives also have fallen along pleasant lines. To a rootless and empty and helpless people He has stretched forth His gracious hand and engrafted us into the same heritage that had come to David. Therefore, we, with David and like him, can say that the lines have fallen us to in pleasant places and that our heritage is beautiful.

This leads us to look forward to the coming year with a deep confidence utterly unknown by Unbelievers. We know that we will walk through the valley of the shadow of death and fear no evil. Our inheritance has meant that we can set the Lord continually before us. He remains at our right hand: therefore, we will not be shaken. Our hearts rejoice, we will dwell securely (vv 7—9). Our Lord is with us.

The image of the Lord at our right hand is singular and striking. The right hand is a symbol of skill, strength, and power. The declaration that it is the Lord Who is at our right hands means that His being with us makes us skillful, strong, and powerful in all that we are called to do. We will, therefore, withstand. We will, therefore, be resolute. We will, therefore, not be shaken.

And so we go gladly with quiet confidence into the coming days.