One of the most important decisions I make each day is to have a good attitude. This is not to say I get it right every time, but it is one of my greatest goals. I cannot express how difficult it is to see so vividly in my dreams and then to wake up to blindness and not have the ability to see anything. It is on days like this that I must be deliberate and intentional in going forward and choosing joy.
Psalm 16:5-6 gives me the right attitude adjustment when I need it. David wrote, “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.” I love the sequence of these verses. If I recognize that the Lord is my chosen portion and my cup, then I am saying that He is my daily provision. Just as my daily food satisfies and fulfills me, so it is God that satisfies and fills my soul. It is saying that God is all I need. David then recognizes that God holds his lot. In other words, the events of life are neither coincidental nor haphazard. It was Alan Redpath who once said, “There is nothing–no circumstance, no trouble, no testing–that can ever touch me until, first of all, it has gone past God and past Christ right through to me.”
David describes his lot in life like this, “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance” (Psalm 16:6). When David speaks of the lines falling in pleasant places, he is referring to how God divided the land between the twelve Tribes of Israel, and he calls his inheritance beautiful. When considering your lot in life, would you use words like pleasant and beautiful?
Perhaps your lot in life is hard and difficult, and quite frankly, it may not even be fair. You may be up against circumstances that are outside of your control, like what I face in blindness. So here is a better question. If pleasant and beautiful cannot describe your lot in life, could it describe your attitude? Warren Wiersbe used to say, “Your outlook determines your outcome, and your attitude determines your altitude.” Follow David’s logic. Because God is our chosen portion and cup, in other words, all I need to be satisfied in life, then I am okay with Him holding my lot or determining the events of my life. Because I trust in His sovereignty and wisdom, I can choose to call the outcomes of my life pleasant and beautiful. This is why scripture gives me an attitude of gratitude.
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