Psalms 84:12 “Blessed is the man who trusts in You”
by Max R.
This year, I am taking an important step. I am working towards my confirmation. When I was an infant, I was baptized and my parents asked God to take me as His child. I obviously don’t remember it, but I was told it was a very special occasion: I am the first grand-child to my German grand-parents so everyone was excited. I was baptized in a small village in eastern Germany, in the same church where my father and his father were baptized before me. Lots of family history!
But my story starts now, as I am getting ready to make my own personal commitment to God. There is no doubt to me that God is very important in my life – He has been as far as I can remember. I know, as a proven fact, that He has always been listening to me, watching over me and protecting me and I have been able to trust in Him. Therefore, the verse I chose to represent my relationship to Him is “Blessed is the man who trusts in You”, Ps 84:12.
That verse, and the psalm it comes from, bring me such strong feelings that I can see them as I say the verse. It inspired the attached picture montage I made. It shows a field that is green, lush, full of life and health like my life. It is bright, warm and alive in the light God shines on me, like Ps 84:11 says “For the LORD God is a sun and shield”. It makes me feel like playing there, celebrating with others, enjoying His blessings and praising Him for being my God. Praise to God is shown in the picture of my own hands reaching up to the sun (upper left).
The verse talks about “trust”. I trust nice people to be a certain way – to be kind, to help others, to keep secrets, to be positive and encouraging. I trust myself (I think I have sound judgement), my parents (they are kind people who listen to me and want to help me) and my sister (I know she loves me and will watch out for me) – that’s represented in the picture of my family (middle left). The dog Balto (right of my picture) represents my friends – loyal, kind, loving. For me, trust in God means that He is going to help me, bless me and work all things out in the best way possible – His way. He knows everything about me so, logically, He knows (and keeps) all my secrets (picture of whispering, center top). I ask Him to help me when I need help, when things are not going well (for instance when I am worried about tests at school, or I need help to concentrate and focus, or I need help to finish stuff when there is no time to do so). To show that, I picked a picture that is very meaningful to me: light coming down through dark clouds (center bottom): it reminds me of the big hallways of my new school where people are screaming and shoving each other, and the feeling of light upon me which I get in His presence as He protects me. I also feel I can trust God for others who need protection or help (safety and success for my dad on his business trips, health and happiness for all my grand parents, inspiration and patience for my teachers, protection and fun for my friends).
Technically, because He spends all the time with me, I should and could and will spend more time talking to Him directly – through prayer and dialogue (which is both sharing with and listening to Him). That’s represented by the picture of a child trusting and speaking fearlessly eye-to-eye with a big kind dog (center).
The verse also talks about “being blessed”, as a result of trusting God. For me, to be blessed is about joy, happiness, a sense of peace (like the heart-shaped hands in the sky, top right, which is a sign we use in my family to signal our love for each other even across crowded rooms or from far away). It’s about all good things coming from God. It’s positive. That sense of inner joy and happiness is what I feel when I see one my favorite Bayern München soccer players, Thomas Müller, when he has scored (bottom left). He’s a nice person, with a great sense of humor and a rational mind.
Being blessed is about God helping you, watching over you, being next to you, looking out for you. Living in God’s house (in His environment, in a way that pleases Him and is therefore healthy all around for you) is making it so that you can ‘relax’ when you are ‘home’: you can let your guards down. You can chill in God’s house. That’s how I feel at home with my family. That’s how I’d feel like in that big sunny field.
I see blessings in terms of answers to prayers, but in greater and better ways that I could even have thought to ask for. For example, I am in a new school this year and I was really worried about this new experience. But now, I see how God has blessed me because I realize my teachers are great, I made some nice friends, and I have never had to eat lunch in the noisy lunchroom – instead, I get to stay in my teacher’s room and listen to music for a peaceful break. God has blessed me in so many ways that I can see now with hindsight. That really links those two pictures of the service dog leading the blind person (trust even if you don’t know how things will work out) and the light coming through the dark clouds (in the worse moments, God is with you, even if you don’t know it at the time).
Being blessed is about God helping you, watching over you, being next to you, looking out for you.
This verse and this picture really comfort me. It’s obvious to me that God wants to bless me. All is takes is trust. I trust Him. It’s easy. But I also think there might be times when I won’t trust Him when I grow up. It seems to have happened to everyone aside from Jesus. My picture shows that in two ways. First, there is a hand coming out of quick sand that looks like it wants to grab me and pull me in (bottom right). It’s like temptation coming from inside to do something I know is not pleasing to God but I still want to do it. These days, it might be wasting time watching sports on ESPN instead of doing homework… Second, there is also destruction and danger coming from the outside. My picture shows that with two guns (violence and attacks in the world) and a mask. To me, the devil is about that danger and temptation, and he hides his true intention to destroy us – like someone behind a mask. This mask is scary, like him. Actually, I found that mask on the internet and think it’s very appropriate: it’s Guy Fawkes, the traitor who plotted to kill British King James I. And evil can pop out of nowhere, like on that green field, so you need to be ready for it and fight the enemy at any time by staying close to God. But when I do fall, I think that if I come ‘home’ and trust God, speak with Him and ask His forgiveness, I believe He will bless me again with His love and His protection. My plan for continuing to trust Him is to pray. And if I don’t want to entrust to Him a part of my life I like but He doesn’t, I will have to pray about that or ask others to pray for me. That’s why you need Christian friends and a nice pastor!
God is the best and closest friend I have. He has plans for me and will help me write a great story for my life if I live it in His honor. That’s why I am so inspired by my confirmation verse as a guide for living my life: “Blessed is the man who trusts in You”.
