Wedding of Hendrik Combrink & Sharon Stegen
Lamentations 3
24 The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
Various Bible translators have struggled with this word “portion”. Some translators render it “inheritance” and that is a wonderful meaning regarding the believer’s future. However, most translators have chosen to translate the Hebrew word “khay`lek” as “portion”. It is used in one other place in the Old Testament because of it’s alternative meaning of “smoothness”. When David chose the 5 stones to confront Goliath with, the Bible uses the same word for those stones. This gives us another gem of understanding – the 5 stones were not randomly picked but rather because of their “smoothness”, their “portion”, their “allotment”, chosen by God.
For Jeremiah, the author of Lamentations, had experienced the dreadful, catastrophic fall of Jerusalem. Yet, he could turn to what really mattered in life – the Lord. And the Lord was not some distant god, but the true God, his maker, the One whom he knew by experience, the One with whom He walked. Jeremiah could trust in the “allotment”, the “portion” of the disaster upon his beloved city because there was One who was his true beloved, the Living God Himself – “his portion”.
That “He is my portion”, “He belongs to me and I belong to Him” is the most comforting, emboldening, enriching knowledge one can ever have.
For the couple getting married and for every person here, this is what really matters. Do you have Him? You might possess everything else but it is all in vain if you don’t have Christ.
All married couples and all people find that there are times of difficulties and hardships but with the knowledge that He is your portion you can face anything and be victorious, in life and in death.