God is our portion

"Lament arises from the despair of looking honestly at these realities for what they are, and wishing for something else. It is the despair that arises from not knowing what can be done or how to overcome.

Yet it has been said that 'the cry of pain is our deepest acknowledgement that we are not home.' The author continues, 'We are divided from our own body; our own deepest desires; our dearest relationships. We are separated and long for utter restoration. It is the cry of pain that initiates the search to ask God, "What are you doing?" It is this element of a lament that has the potential to change the heart.' (Dan Allender, "The Hidden Hope in Lament") If this is true then sometimes my overwhelming sorrow, my feelings of bitterness over some of the harsh or inevitable realities of life are, in fact, the crucible for real change. The same waters of despair that seek to drown and overwhelm are the waters of cleansing. So indeed, let the tears flow, 'For if the Lord causes grief, then He will have compassion according to His abundant lovingkindness.' As one who desires to walk with the 'man of sorrows' who was 'acquainted with grief,' may lament have its way of bittersweet transformation."

- Margaret Manning

I thank God that He is the one who upholds my life, and that He is the one who is in charge of my life, because so often, I run away from the things that I really need, not knowing just how much I need them.

And God pulls me out of my cave and forces me to confront them, because He knows I will never be whole if I don't let myself heal. If I don't let Him come in with His surgical knife to cut off all the parts of me that are rotten and crusty.

And I really can't even begin to express how good God is. How He just always provides emotionally. How He always makes sure I have SOMEONE around me who cares about my heart enough to give me the hard words I need to hear. Words that remind me that I am always always on His heart...words I really need as I process through all the issues from my past that have remained undealt with - the irrational fears, the unacknowledged desires, the crippling insecurities, the burden of expectations, my continued lack of maturity and discretion, God's intentions for MY life and my heart.

I always think that I'm regressing in my walk with God whenever I have to go through all these issues and work on them again and again...but that's a very short sighted way of looking at things. Thank God I don't have to lean on my own sight, but His. And I know that even though it feels like I have to work through the same things over and over again, He is doing a deeper, more enduring work each time. And there can be no form of progress if I don't let Him. And I know the fruit of it will be wonderful, liberating, beautiful, glorifying to Him.

Recently, my heart was awakened to the BIGNESS of Psalm 73:26...

"My flesh and my heart may fail,

But God is the strength of my heart and MY PORTION FOREVER."

How nice it is to have a God who not only promises to be the STRENGTH of my heart, the one who upholds all things and keeps us going when our hearts become weakened and shaken by the things of this life, by the pain of loving and losing and uncertainty, but gives the FULLNESS, THE WHOLENESS of Himself to us as OUR PORTION.

God is OUR PORTION. He makes Himself our reward. He gives of HIMSELF to us.

We always talk about not having enough or not having as much as someone else, but God says, "I AM YOUR PORTION." Your portion is not measured by the amount of gifts you have, or the level of anointing you have, or the size of your church. God is your portion. When God created us and decided what to bless us with, He made Himself our portion. When we understand that, it seems so incredibly foolish to even THINK of wanting anything else. Everything that is IN GOD, all the wisdom and love and power and comfort that is found in Him, is ours to have. "If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS?" (Romans 8:31-32)

What is this all things?

The fullness of Christ.

Joy, peace, love, mercy, grace, beauty, justice, compassion. But also pain, suffering, sacrifice, "loneliness", grief...

But because God is our portion, "who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:

'For Your sake we are killed all day long;

We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.'

Yet in al these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created things, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

- Romans 8:35-39