Over the course of the last year, my son has been learning to count and identify numbers. He gets better at it each day. His sister has been trying to copy him so she repeats certain numbers after him and is starting to identify a few herself. Through this process of his learning, my wife and I have been working specifically on his identification of numbers. It was easy for him early on to count one through ten by memory. It was much more difficult though and took time for him to recognize the numbers one through ten.
I was listening to a song this week that is essentially a remake really of the old hymn “Count Your Blessings”. The song is called “Count Them All” by the JJ Weeks Band. It is a beautiful song and great update to the great hymn of the faith. As I have listened to this new-to-me song over the last week numerous times, it has stressed some important truths that are key if doing this is to aid any believer in his walk of faith.
IDENTIFICATION – Before we can really even begin to count the blessing of the Lord in our lives, we first must be able to recognize them. This takes eyes that are sensitive to what God is doing in our lives no matter what the present circumstances look like. Things that are familiar are often taken for granted but are they any less a blessing from the Lord (food for our table, roof over our head, health for the day, breath, a sunrise/sunset) and a sign of his grace shown toward us? Sometimes the circumstances themselves become distractors to us, blinding our field of view from anything else. In those moments, it is paramount that we keep our focus on him that he might encourage our hearts and direct us to the simple signs of his faithfulness. A simple sunrise reminds us of not only the faithfulness of God, but also of his sovereignty pointing us once again to the truth–he is in control of this situation too.
TIME – The idea of counting our blessings may sound good, but let’s be honest, do you actually do it? Counting our blessings can encourage our hearts in the midst of troubles that we are experiencing, refresh our souls in a spiritual drought, or continue to foster growth in and appreciation of our relationship with God. We have to dedicate time to do this though. On my short five minute trip back and forth to work, I’ve had to consciously make the choice and tell myself, “I am going to think on and look for the blessings of God in my life for the next five minutes.” As the song reminded me this week, “take a breath and count them all.”
FOCUS – This could have probably been tacked onto “identification,” but I think it deserves a separate heading. It is way too easy to think of the money I have in my bank account as something that I have earned after I put in a solid forty hours (or more) at work this past week. Or that the money I do have, I can spend however I want. Notice all the “I’s” used in those sentences. We need to understand that everything we have is a gift from God and sign of his grace–a blessing. He gave us the ability to work to earn that money. He has given us the job that provides a routine income. He provided the breath to us to even be able to get up that day to work. As we recognize that everything we have is a gift from him, we stand in complete awe of who he is as God. I know I do anyway. I am just blown away more and more at what an amazing God he truly is.
OCCASION – We usually spend time counting blessings at Thanksgiving. I think it is appropriate do it then of course. But giving thanks to God isn’t reserved for just one day in three hundred and sixty five. The psalmist says that this is the day the Lord has made so rejoice. Each day is a time to rejoice and count the blessings of God in our lives. It doesn’t matter whether the day is one of celebration or we are walking through the darkest valley that David mentioned in Psalm 23. Doing so brings us face to face with the love and grace and goodness of God. I think that as we purpose to do so in the darkest valleys, as the song says, we gain perspective, we find joy, we receive spiritual strength, our hearts are encouraged and experience a peace and confounds our world.
James tells us in his epistle that every good and perfect gift is from our Father above. “Go ahead and try to count them all.”