But God is their inheritance

Every family I know seems to be feeling financially stretched at the moment. Our income just doesn’t seem to go as far as it used to. Many families are living pay cheque to pay cheque, with little left over at the end of the month. We’re taking on extra work; we’re selling our second cars; we’re eating less meat. We’re always trying to ‘get ahead’ and put something away for a rainy day. But the money just seems to evaporate.

It’s like pouring water into a dry well. We’re trying and trying to fill it up. But the earth is so parched, it just soaks the water up and we’re running on empty again.

As Christians, we trust in God to provide for us. We believe in the one who said:

‘ … do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?’ (Matthew 6:25–26)

As Christians, we pray each day for God to ‘give us today our daily bread’ (Matthew 6:11)—and he always does! But he rarely seems to give us a whole month’s provision to ‘store away’ in advance.

Then kids come along

Before having children, this kind of living by faith day-to-day can seem like an adventure. We pray and trust … and then we see God provide what we need just in the nick of time. But once we have children depending on us, having a near-empty bank account or fridge is just plain stressful. We can feel like we’re failing at ‘adulting’.

Those of us who have ‘baby boomer’ parents see them living very comfortably. They’ve worked in steady jobs and retired with a healthy amount of superannuation. They own houses, caravans, investment properties and can afford to go travelling. They seem to have enough left over to help us out when we need it.

But when we look at our own financial situation, we can start to wonder if we will ever build up any kind of inheritance to hand over to our own children—we’re struggling just to afford to live. We can start to feel guilty and afraid that perhaps we won’t have much material wealth to pass on to the next generation.

But God …

When the psalmist Asaph looked at his own situation compared to the comfortable lives of those around him, he felt envious and discouraged and doubted his choices. In his own words, he was no longer standing on the foundation of faith in God: ‘But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold’ (Psalm 73:2).

But then Asaph enters the sanctuary of God, and his perspective is transformed. His psalm finishes with these words directed to God:

Yet I am always with you;
    you hold me by my right hand.
 You guide me with your counsel,
    and afterwards you will take me into glory.
 Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
 My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart
    and my portion for ever. (Psalm 73:23–26)

Asaph realises that the only thing he really needs is God himself. He doesn’t need a life of material comfort and security. He just needs to be in a relationship with God—the one who created and sustains the universe, the one who provides for our daily needs.

The same is true for us and our children. Putting our hope in material wealth and comparing ourselves to others will only lead to disappointment and uncertainty. God himself is our only hope, our only refuge and our only security for this life and the next.

God is my portion

Asaph says: ‘God is my portion for ever’ (Psalm 73:26). The word portion is mainly used in the Old Testament to describe the physical allotments of the Promised Land that God gave to the tribes of Israelites. Each portion of land would remain within each family in perpetuity so that they could farm it and provide for themselves. It was given as an inheritance from one generation to the next. One exception was the tribe of Levi, which did not receive a physical inheritance of land, but rather a ‘portion’ of the offerings that people brought to the temple where they served.

But because Israel stopped trusting in God alone, they were eventually carried away from the land of their inheritance by a foreign power, with only a small remnant ever to return. At that dreadful time in Israel’s history, the prophet Jeremiah reminded himself through the tears:

 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
 They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
 I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.’ (Lamentations 3:22–24)

Like Asaph, what Israel needed to remember is that ultimately their physical ‘portion’, their material inheritance, was worthless unless they continued in right relationship with the one who had graciously gifted it to them.

The ultimate inheritance

When we worry about the ‘portion’ or inheritance that we might pass on to our children, let’s remember the lesson that Israel had to learn the hard way: God is our portion. The best inheritance we can leave our children is the knowledge of their Creator, who sustains and provides for them. When we’re feeling financially stretched, it’s an opportunity to model trusting in God alone for our security—the only one who provides both our daily ‘bread’ and our eternal salvation. God is our portion, and he is enough to be our children’s too.

Peter wrote a letter to the Christian ‘exiles’ scattered throughout the Roman empire. Not many of them were wealthy, with a large physical ‘portion’ to pass on to their children. But Peter encourages them with these words:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,  and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,  who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3–9)

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