Psalm Chapter 16

Psalm 16: The Lines in Pleasant Places

Here is a man who has found the secret that most of us spend our lives circling without quite landing upon: that God himself is the inheritance. Not what God gives, mind you, but God. The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup. Most of us, if we are honest, treat God as the means to some other end — peace, perhaps, or purpose, or the avoidance of something dreadful. David has cut through all of that. And from this discovery flows one of the loveliest lines in all the Psalms: the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places. This is not the voice of a man whose circumstances are easy — it is the voice of a man whose center of gravity has shifted. When God is the portion, then the boundaries of your life, wherever they fall, are pleasant. And then comes that final, breathtaking turn: in thy presence is fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Not duty. Not mere endurance. Pleasures — and forever.

00:00 Preserve Me, O God
00:20 The Lord Is My Portion
00:35 The Lines in Pleasant Places
00:48 Counsel in the Night Seasons
01:00 The Path of Life
01:15 Fulness of Joy at His Right Hand