“You never know if the Lord is enough until He’s all you have left.”

I don’t know who first said that — I suspect only the Lord does — but these days, with the worldwide economy seeking new subterranean territory, it’s a good reminder. It may well be that before this is all over, He is all any of us have left.

But He will be enough.

Over three thousand years ago, the Lord made a simple little statement to explain the situation concerning the tribe of Levi as Israel made plans to divvy up the Promised Land. That statement resonated with David the Psalmist and soon found its way into a number of his songs—and forever lodged itself in our hearts.

The Lord was laying out the portions of the newly acquired country which would be assigned to each of the twelve tribes. On the east bank of the Jordan, Manasseh gets the territory to the north, Reuben gets the section below that, and Gad the southernmost land. On the west bank, which was much larger, the other tribes were assigned portions large and small, depending on their population. Everyone except the Levites, the priestly tribe. They received no land.

“I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel,” the Lord said (Numbers 18:20). This was repeated in Deuteronomy 10:9, “Therefore, Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance; just as the Lord your God promised him.” Deuteronomy 18:1,2 reaffirms it.

When you’re slicing up the pie, so to speak, the Lord is your slice.

The question is: is that enough for you?

David, drawn to a great metaphor like I am to a freezer of home-made ice cream, loved that idea. Here’s what he did with it….

In Psalm 16, he celebrates the reality of God’s nearness and fullness. You can sense David’s laughter as he exclaims, “O Lord, you are the portion of my inheritance and my cup….yes, I have a good inheritance.” (Psalm 16:5,6) This is the psalm, you may recall, which ends with Billy Graham’s favorite verse: “In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.”

“Whom have I in heaven but You?” David asked the Lord. He continued, “And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.” And then, “My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” He concludes this 73rd Psalm with this affirmation: “It is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all your works.”

In the longest chapter of the Bible, David (or someone) goes to great extremes to tell the Lord how precious He is and how strategic is His word. He writes, “You are my portion, O Lord.” (Psalm 119:57)

At one point, David lamented that no one cared for his soul. He was very low. But then: “I cried out to you, O Lord: I said, ‘You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.'” (Psalm 142:5)

Using the same image, in Psalm 17, David calls our attention to the materialist for whom everything good is found in this life only. He speaks of “men of this world who have their portion in this life, and whose belly you fill with your hidden treasure. They are satisfied with children and leave the rest of their possession for their babes.” (17:14)

Not so with the believer. “As for me, I will see your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied with your likeness when I awake.” (17:15) He will be satisfied, not with possessions but with the Lord. (Can anyone read this and not think of the line: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want”?)

Solomon (or someone) picked up on the theme and further rhapsodized on it. The third chapter of Lamentations is known chiefly as the repository of the line, “Great is thy faithfulness” (verse 23), but the very next verse reads, “The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I hope in him.”

And one more. Ezekiel 44 speaks of the laws governing priests. They live by a more stringent code and the demands upon them are high. But then, so are the rewards. “It shall be, in regard to their inheritance, that I am their inheritance. You shall give them no possession in Israel, for I am their possession.” (44:28)

So, there we have it. The Lord is our portion.

Each morning as I go over my lengthy prayer list — these things keep growing and growing, don’t they — I have a few requests concerning my post-April 30 existence (that’s the date of my retirement). With the troubled stock market, my Guidestone portfolio has lost half its value and shows no sign of recovery. Should I transfer the remaining funds to something sound but which offers tiny returns? Or leave it alone to benefit from a recovery whenever it comes? Over all of the requests, I have scribbled this reminder: “Lord, you are my portion.”

This means at least three things.

1) I refuse to worry. God knows what He is about. My trust is not in man but in the Lord.

2) I rejoice in His sufficiency. “Not that we are adequate to think anything of ourselves, but our adequacy is of God” (II Corinthians 3:5).

3) I recommit myself to staying active in the ministry. At this point, what that will be is known only to the Lord. That suits me just fine. When we get to the point where He wants me to know, He will tell me. Paul said, “Tell Archippus to take heed that he fulfill the ministry which he has received in the Lord” (Colossians 4:17).

Periodically, when I’m tempted to be anxious about the future, the Holy Spirit reminds me of how He took care of us in 1990. After a difficult situation in the previous church, I had accepted a one year leave of absence which would end on August 31. Throughout this time, I accepted every preaching invitation coming my way and constantly kept our situation before the Lord in prayer. In the late Spring, a large church in South Mississippi asked me to become their pastor. I said to Margaret, “If I turn this down, you’re going to know the Lord is leading!” He was and I did, without a clue what would happen after August.

Frank Pollard, the beloved pastor of Jackson, Mississippi’s First Baptist Church, called and asked me to fill in for him over three Sundays that summer while he and Jane took a vacation. We even moved into their home! On the third and final Sunday, July 1, the pastor search committee from the First Baptist Church of Kenner came calling. Early in September, that church called me as pastor, and they made the pay retroactive to the first of the month. I did not miss a paycheck.

I will trust in the Lord. He is my portion. “Whom have I in heaven (or earth either, for that matter!) but Thee?”

A postscript: Our beloved brother, Dr. Frank Pollard, went to Heaven a few days ago after a lengthy bout with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. I have paid tribute to him on these pages at other times, but want to reaffirm my unbounded admiration and appreciation for this dear friend. At the end of 1973, I moved from the staff of FBC-Jackson to become pastor of the FBC of Columbus, Mississippi, only two weeks before Frank came as pastor. So, our ministries never coincided, but he was so gracious to me, you would have thought I was one of “his boys.”

That church is holding a memorial service for Dr. Pollard on Thursday, December 11, at 2 pm, in their sanctuary across the street from the state capitol in Jackson. I plan to be there, driven by a mixture of grief and joy.

A number of years ago, Dr. Argile Smith, at the time preaching professor at our New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, sent a student to interview Dr. Pollard. The young preacher asked, “After you’re gone, how do you want to be remembered?” Frank answered, “I don’t want to be remembered. I’m just the messenger.”

Argile told me that when the student reported this to the class, silence fell across the room. He said, “Big preachers just don’t talk that way.”

We will remember anyway, dear friend. But mostly and far more importantly, God will remember. “God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love you have shown toward His name in having ministered to the saints and in still ministering.” (Hebrews 6:10)