Blooming within your lot

David was not having a good day. ‘I am restless in my complaint and moan noisily, because of the voice of the enemy…My heart is severely pained within me and the terrors of death have fallen upon me…fearfulness and trembling have come upon me’

David’s first reaction? ‘Get me out of here’...’Oh that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest...I would remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.’ When I was young, some Christians used to say something that disturbed me—and I was not quite sure why. They would say when difficulties came someone’s way. “God won’t give you anything that’s too hard for you to handle” (or words to that effect). I think it was very loosely based on 1 Cor. 10:13.
The one thing they did have correct was the understanding that God gives, or allots, things. On another occasion David said ‘the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Yes, I have a good inheritance’ (Psalm 16:6) and it carries the same idea…Someone allots our Lot!

1.We live within a ‘Lot’ (or Allotment)—and—there is an ‘Allotter.’ We understand our ‘lot’ as
the framework and set of circumstances within which we live and find ourselves (both short and long term). Some are happy with their lot. Others feel very unhappy, hard-done-by or even bitter. Of course, there are often things that we can (and ought) do, to improve our lot—get a job, spend less, eat healthily, stop looking within and help another.

In your street or apartment block, each one lives within a Lot or Allotment, and that Lot defines the limits of your responsibility. Mine is not the responsibility of next door or down the street or across the street, nor how they live or conduct their affairs. My responsibility and stewardship is my Lot. In the natural realm, if we don’t like our Lot we can of course, sell out and move to one more amenable to our likes—with better neighbours or water views or closer to the shops. But of course, changing location doesn’t change me.

David was in the midst of circumstances that made him want escape his ‘Lot’! The wicked oppressed him and brought trouble his way to the point where it was taking its toll. He was depressed and restless and in fear for his life! Friends had forsaken him and he was surrounded by deception!
Escape seemed an attractive option: ‘oh that I had wings like a dove; I would fly away and be at rest. I would wander far off and lodge in the desert…I’d hasten my escape from the rushing storm wind and tempest.’
That’s how he felt, until he came back to the foundation of Truth. And the truth, as always, was in God—it is He who allots!
Things become altogether different for those who know, love and worship The Allotter, The Dealer.

2. God has a Plan for your Lot: The bottom line is that God’s plan for each and every Lot is
the recognition of His presence in it—and that glory and praise and honour be brought to Him within it (and outward from it). His desire is that my Lot becomes a ‘cell’ of His presence and we’ll see how that is possible—the only way it is possible. He desires that I bloom within my Lot! In fact, He designed my Lot to enable me to bloom!
What that requires is my joyful recognition that HE is the Allotter—and I, the Allottee! This may not be easy. It is submission.

But of course, His plan goes beyond me—for it is that each one may bloom within their Lot and that the cells together form a matrix where the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts to reveal the glory and power and presence of God!
The world has an expression, ‘you play the hand that’s dealt you’ and it’s not far from the truth, except that it lacks the vital element. The world sees the ‘fates’ or ‘karma’ or chance or ‘lady luck’ as the cause and random generator of each ‘hand.’ The response to this varies from stoicism to reaction and anger—or for some rare individuals, a quiet determination to make the best of the situation. That is getting close to the Kingdom of God, but those in that Kingdom are they who’ve come to know personally, The Dealer! And to know that His purpose for each one within their Lot is that they find Him there and bloom there as a testimony to his presence and power—and in the trusting rest that all that He does is on purpose and has a beautiful end in view. (There are people not yet part of the Kingdom—as far as we know—who are also great examples of accepting their Lot and becoming something within it. We admire people like Kurt Fearnley and others).

3. God’s Expectation of me within my Lot: in coming back to the truth David knew so well
In his heart, he says ‘as for me, I will call upon God…He has redeemed my soul in shalom from the battle…’ It was David’s soul that was distressed! His senses and emotions and responses. The part of us that God wants to redeem from its tendencies, and bring to shalom.
So, what is God’s desire for us and expectation of us in such circumstances?

Here it is: that we learn to do as v.22 urges; ‘cast your burden and He will sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be shaken.’ The Hebrew word translated ‘burden’ is YEHAWB and its meaning is…a lot, that which is given—allotted! Here it is in the ISV— ‘Cast on the LORD whatever he sends your way, and he will sustain you.’
So, it’s not true that He won’t send me anything I’m not able to carry. He may deliberately do so in order that I will learn what to do with it! Cast it on Him…and trust! (As Peter said in 1 Peter 5:6, this is how we humble ourselves).

What He is after in me is my learning to access His extraordinary, abounding grace within my Lot; ‘this grace’ as Paul said ‘in which we stand…and rejoice in hope of the glory of God’!! (Rom.5:2).
Not that people hear my whingeing—but that they marvel at His presence and grace! We must discover His grace; we must stand and walk in His grace; it is sufficient! And what we find is that not only is He there and willing to carry our burden, He is willing to carry us and our burden. No wonder He said ‘my yoke is easy and my burden is light’! He desires the display of His grace, not a display of a big ME and my stoicism or toughness—or my complaining. His grace!

4. This is Righteous living: David wrote ‘cast your Lot on the Lord and He will sustain you; He
shall never permit the righteous to be moved/shaken.’ The righteous life—the life in which His righteousness is seen is this: that we are learning, ‘whatever my Lot, He has taught me to know, it is well, it is well with my soul.’

This is the life where His grace abounds. Grace that defies the world and its ways. This is the contrast He is after.

Ian Heard 6/10/19
www.until-we-see.com

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