It is customary for youth confirmands to receive their own “confirmation verse.” Sometimes the student choses their own passage; other times it is chosen for them. In any case, I think the passage is supposed to be a passage for the individual to make special application to their lives of faith as they make their confirmation vows and as they walk through life. When I was confirmed, we didn’t get to pick ours. We were told that they were chosen with each individual in mind. But I could never figure out why I got the one I did. It wasn’t a passage that I was very familiar with. It wasn’t one that seemed to obviously apply to me. (By 8th grade I already knew pretty well that I wanted to become a pastor. Maybe I was looking one more specific.)
I was assigned Psalm 62:1,2: “My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.”
It’s a wonderful passage, but it just didn’t jump out at me. It’s no Revelation 2:10 or Romans 8:28. And so I really didn’t latch on to it. If you asked me in high school, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you what my confirmation verse was (without looking it up in my Bible where it was highlighted).
This evening I was reading the section on Psalm 62 in the Psalms Devotional Commentary that I’m working through. And I thought to myself that this passage has become so much more dear to me now than it used to be. As I have grown more attached to the psalms and as I have grown a little older with just a few more experiences, I have found these words to be priceless: “My soul finds rest in God alone.”
There have been many times that some situation in life and ministry is really weighing on my mind and heart. Maybe it’s something a member is going through or said to me. Maybe it’s some issue at church or school that needs to be resolved somehow. Or maybe it’s some big project or task that’s coming up—either it’s behind schedule or it’s becoming harder than it seemed at first. All of these kind of things take their place in my heart and soul. I can’t simply leave them behind “at work” as though my work were just a job. When these kinds of things weigh heavy, it’s hard to shake them. It’s hard be relaxed, comfortable. These things can even hang on long into the night.
“My soul finds rest in God alone.” If I can come before God at the end of each day, and through Jesus Christ, find a welcome in his arms—does anything else really matter? Yes, those things all need to be dealt with and thought about and worked on, but in God—I need nothing. I don’t need to work to be with him. I don’t need to convince him to let me come. I don’t need to think about the right way to approach him. Only rest. And only in God. Only in Jesus.
So I now appreciate my confirmation verse. Now I add it to my ever-growing list of favorite psalms. And, interestingly enough, very often it’s the psalms to which I turn when I want to “find rest in God alone.”
A Shepherd's Story 