When God Is All You’ve Got

PREVIEW: If you find yourself wrestling with chronic discontent, try focusing on all the blessings of just belonging to your Heavenly Father. I am quite certain that if you do that, you will come to the place where you realize that when God is all you’ve got, you’ve got it all! Even still, desiring — and asking for — God’s overflowing blessing in your life is neither selfish nor shallow — not at all. In fact, it is what God created you to desire and to experience. You see, your desiring and your asking for his abundant best is an act of faith on your part that honors him.

A Journey of Worship // Psalm 16:2

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

When God is all you’ve got, you’ve got it all!

David’s confession that apart from God he had no good thing was not the admission of a desperate person in dire need pathetically clinging to his God. No, this was a bold and delightful recognition that being dependent on the Lord was the supreme place of:

• Blessing — “LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup,” (v. 5)
• Favor — “surely I have a delightful inheritance,” v. 6)
• Wisdom — “the LORD, who counsels me; at night my heart instructs me,” (v. 7)
• Security — “because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken,” (v. 8)
• Emotional well-being — “therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices,” (v. 9)
• Invincibility — “because you will not abandon me to the grave,” (v. 10)
• Satisfaction — “you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (v. 11).

If you are in a place that provides all that — God’s blessing, divine favor, spiritual wisdom, personal security, emotional health, supernatural intervention, and soul-soothing satisfaction — what more could you possibly ask for? Anything else you have in life — financial abundance, physical health, relational well-being — is just icing on the cake.

Sometimes we get a little discontent when we focus on all the things we don’t have. And of course, it is appropriate to ask God for the things we need, even the things we desire — that is, if we ask in accordance to his will.

But if you find yourself wrestling with chronic discontent, try focusing on all the blessings of just belonging to your Heavenly Father. I am quite certain that if you do that, you will come to the place where you realize that when God is all you’ve got, you’ve got it all!

By the way, desiring — and asking for — God’s overflowing blessing in your life is not selfish at all. In fact, it is what God created you to desire and to experience. In fact, your desiring and asking for his abundant best is an act of faith on your part that honors him. I agree with how John Piper said it,

“Christian Hedonism says this: ‘God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him.’ In fact, not only is there no conflict between your happiness and God’s glory, but his glory shines in your happiness, when your happiness is in him.”
So go ahead and ask bigly of God. It will glorify him, most importantly, and it will make you happy in the meantime. And that is not a bad thing.