His Glory My Joy, a blog of Author Luana Ehrlich

I can’t count the number of times I heard my mother say, “Here, take mine,” when I was growing up.

After she said this, she’d offer me or one of my siblings something from her plate—her piece of cake, the rest of her French fries, her pancakes. It was her portion of the meal, but she willingly sacrificed and gave it to us.

My mother’s willingness to offer me something that belonged to her beautifully illustrates the meaning of the word “portion” that appears more than one hundred times in the Old Testament.

David declares in Psalm 142:5, “I cry to you, O Lord; You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”

And in Psalm 16:5, he says, “The Lord is my chosen portion.”

Jeremiah, in Lamentations 3:24, says, “‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in Him.’”

In each of these passages, the portion God gives us is something far better than anything physical.

He gives us Himself.

He is our portion.

In the New Testament, the picture is just as precious.

We see it in the story of Jesus’s visit to the home of Mary and Martha. While Mary sits at Jesus’s feet, listening to His every word, Martha complains that Mary isn’t helping her in the kitchen. Jesus responds to Martha this way: “Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

What was the good portion Mary had chosen?

She chose Jesus.

He was her portion. He was her joy. He was her security. He was her sustenance.

And He can be ours as well.

If we take the Lord for our portion, we have this promise from Psalm 73:26: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Our circumstances may change. Our strength may fail. Even our hearts may fail us.

But our portion never will.

God will be our portion forever, and one day we’ll hear the Lord say, “You have chosen the good portion.”