When I was involved in a campus Christian ministry in college, we periodically went to ministry conferences. I’ll never forget a talk at one such conference about Psalm 16:6. Having read through the Psalms recently coming upon this verse again brought back wonderful memories of that time before I had to go out into the real world. As I look back over 40 plus years I could not express any better than King David the life God has given me since I first encountered this verse:

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.

Land was a big deal in the ancient world, and more than just an economic transaction as we see it today—It was a matter of life and death. There were no grocery stores, and people fed themselves through painful toil and the sweat of their brow. The more and better land, the more wealth, the more food, the more life.

To really get what David is saying, though, the entire context of the Psalm is critical. These boundary lines didn’t just fall out of the sky, by chance, but involved David himself in his relationship with God. In other words, God’s blessings happen to us for a reason because we ask, seek, and knock; all blessings come from God’s hands. We also live in a cause-and-effect universe He designed, and when we live according to those designs blessing are likely to result. But more importantly, this is a Messianic Psalm, and our earthy blessings are ultimately tied to our spiritual and eternal blessings in Christ.

First, David commits himself to God’s care:

Keep me safe, my God,
for in you I take refuge.

This reflects something I write about here often, trust. We are promised perfect peace if our mind is stayed on God because we trust in Him. I know, easier said than done, but it is doable. We just have to pray for it all the time in everything, and live on his Word as Jesus exhorted us to do.

David also understands a basic fact of existence in God’s created reality:

² I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;
apart from you I have no good thing.”

David acknowledges Yahweh is his master and the Creator God who defines all things in his life that are good. Apart from Yahweh there is no such thing as good. This realization is fundamental to a life well lived, to life that is really life. It’s absurd to think otherwise because as Paul says, God gives us life, breath, and everything else. Then he contrasts this abundant life with the life of poverty that awaits those who think they can find good apart from God:

The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply . . .

This other god is of course no god at all, but a false god who promises everything but delivers nothing but hurt, injury, and pain. We call this idolatry, which is turning good things into ultimate things, as if the created thing can fulfill what only the Creator Himself can provide.

These realizations and practices lead to a life of boundary lines falling for us in pleasant places, for each of God’s people having a delightful inheritance. This is especially powerful in light of redemptive history and its fulfillment in Jesus and the gospel. We are sinners deserving of one thing and one thing only— death, sin’s wages. As I often say, if God’s justice prevailed I would be a pile of ashes smoldering on the ground. We begin to have problems when we think we deserve anything other than that. As I think of it, everything other than death for my sin is gravy. Paul’s contrast with death’s wages? The gift of God that is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Every other gift that is everything in our lives flows out of that supreme gift, and therein we can have true, bubbling over, inconceivable gratitude.

David could not know how the gospel would play out, but he knew enough:

⁷ I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
⁸ I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

The “secret” to the always blessed life is always keeping our eyes on Him, and that means on Jesus, on the cross, his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of God. Jesus used an event during the Exodus to convey the “secret”:

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

The Israelites were complaining because this little journey through the wilderness wasn’t going so well, so the Lord sent venomous snakes among them and many were bitten and died. The Lord told Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” Don’t look at the bite no matter how much it hurts, look up and live! Jesus used this strange story to tell us that we too need to look up to him, trust him, that we too will with David not be shaken.

David’s confidence was in looking forward to Jesus:

⁹ Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,
¹⁰ because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead (Sheol),
nor will you let your holy one see decay.

It’s amazing when you consider David is writing God’s word which is The Word, so even as these are David’s words they are Jesus’ words. This is confirmed by Peter in the first Christian sermon after Pentecost in Acts 2 when he is testifying to the resurrection. Paul confirms it as well when he’s preaching about Jesus’ resurrection in Acts 13. David finishes the Psalm affirming the blessings of those who make God their refuge:

¹¹ You make known to me the path of life;
you fill me with joy in your presence;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

I had never thought of it quite this way before writing this post, but Christ himself is the boundary lines that fall for us in pleasant places. He is our delightful inheritance. I had always thought of these in more material terms, including friends and family, but when Paul says in Ephesians 1 that “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ,” it is these spiritual blessings that imbue every material blessing with ultimate meaning, hope, and joy. Praise the Lord!