The LORD is My Portion

I've been told that the gospel, boiled down, is simply, "Don't worry; life will get better." Oh, sure, that's an oversimplification and, to be sure, it's not for everyone (some of you should expect it to get much worse), but I think that lots of people think that God's basic job is making our lives more comfortable. So we pray for the comfortable and we seek the comfortable and when something uncomfortable happens, God is really in trouble. He didn't answer my prayer. He didn't do what was right.

So prevalent is this notion that I think that a prophet like Jeremiah would have been in very limited company, even among Christians. Jeremiah was God's prophet to Judah before their exile. He was promised by God that he would fail. Well, no, that's not quite accurate. He was promised that they wouldn't listen. And ... they didn't. Jeremiah wrote Lamentations after the fall of Jerusalem, and he was definitely uncomfortable. Interestingly, God's prophet assigned the source of his calamity to God. And he had a long list of calamity (Lam 3:1-18). He concludes, "My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD" (Lam 3:18). Without hope he goes on to say, "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope" (Lam 3:21). What rescues Jeremiah from despair?

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. (Lam 3:22-23)

It's hard to imagine, given his string of complaints about God. It's hard to explain, given his God-promised certainty that things would not get better in his lifetime. It is not ... natural. Jeremiah says, "The LORD is my portion, therefore I will hope in Him" (Lam 3:24). Not "I'm sure things will get better." Just ... Him.

What about you? What about me? Is the LORD your portion? Is the LORD alone enough? Do we require comfort -- better things, circumstances, feelings, whatever -- to find hope in the Lord? Is God's job description to make us comfortable? Or is He enough? Is He -- God, Himself, alone -- our portion? Or are we expecting more?