Among the Blessed

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of serving at Little Eden Camp in Onekama, Michigan. Each morning that week, I stood in front of a room full of campers and staff and walked through Psalm 144—tracing the ancient words of King David and connecting them to the life and ministry of Jesus. By the end of the week, I found myself more encouraged than anyone I was teaching.

Psalm 144 opens with David in full battle language. “Blessed be the LORD, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle” (v. 1). This isn’t a psalm written from a place of comfort—it’s written by a king who knows what it is to be threatened, outnumbered, and afraid. And yet David doesn’t build his confidence on his own strength, his army, or his track record of past victories. He builds it entirely on who God is to him: “my rock, my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield, in whom I take refuge” (v. 2).

That’s worth sitting with. David’s security wasn’t in his circumstances. It was in his relationship.

The psalm winds its way through prayers for rescue, poetic descriptions of a flourishing, God-blessed nation, and then lands on this closing line: “Blessed is the people whose God is the LORD” (v. 15). Not blessed is the people with full barns, or thriving families, or peace on every border—though the psalm mentions all of those things. Blessed, ultimately, is the people who can say: the LORD is our God.

That’s the heartbeat of the whole psalm, and I believe it’s the heartbeat of the gospel too. True blessing is not found first in circumstances, possessions, or even good feelings. It is found in belonging—in knowing that the LORD is our God. That should mean something. It should have an effect on every facet of our lives and of our being.

And here’s where David’s psalm reaches forward toward Jesus. David could call God his rock and refuge because of a covenant relationship God initiated with him. We get to call God our rock and refuge because of a new covenant—one sealed not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with the blood of Christ Himself. Jesus is the greater Son of David who fought the battle we could not fight, defeated the enemy we could not defeat, and secured for us the very thing David was celebrating: the LORD as our God, and us as His people.

When He is our God, we are not left to the rise and fall of our emotions or the uncertainties of life. His love remains steady. His presence is our security. His reign is our peace.

I love how C.S. Lewis put it in Mere Christianity: “…the great thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go, God’s love for us does not.” That’s not a denial of our feelings—Scripture never asks us to pretend our emotions don’t exist. It’s simply a reminder of what our feelings are, and are not, telling us. They are real. But they are not the foundation. God’s covenant love is the foundation, and it doesn’t move just because we do.

So today we have the opportunity to rest in this simple truth: if the Lord is your God, you are already among the blessed. Not because your circumstances have lined up, not because you feel it in this moment, but because He has bound Himself to you in Christ, and He does not change.

Practically, what does it look like to actually rest in this? A few thoughts:

• Name it out loud. There’s something powerful about actually saying, “The LORD is my God,” especially in a hard moment. It reorients your heart back to the foundation.
• Separate the feeling from the fact. When anxious or discouraged feelings show up, you don’t have to fight them by denying them—just remind yourself they are not the final word on your identity or your security.
• Return to the psalm. Whether it’s Psalm 144 or another passage that speaks God’s covenant faithfulness to you, let Scripture keep re-anchoring your thoughts, especially in a season of uncertainty.

Let that reminder of the Father’s endless love, and of our true identity in Christ, quiet our anxious thoughts and fill our hearts with pure, blessed joy. You are among the blessed—not because of what you have, but because of who has you.