And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Deuteronomy 28:2
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your many blessings, see what God has done.
In a typical day, do you spend more time focusing on positives or negatives? Sadly, I think many of us would have to answer that we think about negatives more often. Difficulties come along and we feel overwhelmed, and feel like we have to deal with them, allowing them to draw our attention away whatever else is going on around us. In fact, all too often, we simply take the blessings in our lives for granted without giving them a second thought.
My thoughts along these lines spur from the service at my church Sunday night, which spontaneously turned into a testimony time. Expressing what I'm thankful for and hearing others express what they're thankful for was a very uplifting experience. During the invitation and after the service, people sought one another out to say how much they loved and appreciated each other. To call it uplifting would be a serious understatement, but I don't really know how to express my full emotions about it.
Thinking about all of the blessings in my life has been overwhelming also. Those blessings come in the for of temporal gifts, people, and of course, salvation and the Saviour. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from the Lord, and if we follow Him, more blessings than we could ever dream of flow into our lives. God doesn't want us to live a life of discouragement and defeat. He wants us to follow Him, and experience the blessings and victory that come from doing so.
If you can't think of anything to be thankful for, try harder. There's always something there. In fact, there are many things. There's the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the roofs over our heads, and the fact that we're not in Hell right now. None of those are things that we deserve, and they come only from the goodness of God.
If you're saved, the top blessing you have is your salvation that was paid for by Jesus Christ. If you're lost, the top blessing you have is the chance to live another day and the opportunity to receive the gift of salvation in that day. If we look hard enough, there are always blessings to count.
A former music director at my church who has since passed on to Heaven used to change the words to the chorus of this hymn sometimes. Instead of singing "name them one by one," he'd have us sing "name them ton by ton." That's pretty accurate. We could never count all of our blessings one by one, and honestly, we couldn't count them ton by ton either. We're a truly blessed people.
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your many blessings, see what God has done.
In a typical day, do you spend more time focusing on positives or negatives? Sadly, I think many of us would have to answer that we think about negatives more often. Difficulties come along and we feel overwhelmed, and feel like we have to deal with them, allowing them to draw our attention away whatever else is going on around us. In fact, all too often, we simply take the blessings in our lives for granted without giving them a second thought.
My thoughts along these lines spur from the service at my church Sunday night, which spontaneously turned into a testimony time. Expressing what I'm thankful for and hearing others express what they're thankful for was a very uplifting experience. During the invitation and after the service, people sought one another out to say how much they loved and appreciated each other. To call it uplifting would be a serious understatement, but I don't really know how to express my full emotions about it.
Thinking about all of the blessings in my life has been overwhelming also. Those blessings come in the for of temporal gifts, people, and of course, salvation and the Saviour. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from the Lord, and if we follow Him, more blessings than we could ever dream of flow into our lives. God doesn't want us to live a life of discouragement and defeat. He wants us to follow Him, and experience the blessings and victory that come from doing so.
If you can't think of anything to be thankful for, try harder. There's always something there. In fact, there are many things. There's the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the roofs over our heads, and the fact that we're not in Hell right now. None of those are things that we deserve, and they come only from the goodness of God.
If you're saved, the top blessing you have is your salvation that was paid for by Jesus Christ. If you're lost, the top blessing you have is the chance to live another day and the opportunity to receive the gift of salvation in that day. If we look hard enough, there are always blessings to count.
A former music director at my church who has since passed on to Heaven used to change the words to the chorus of this hymn sometimes. Instead of singing "name them one by one," he'd have us sing "name them ton by ton." That's pretty accurate. We could never count all of our blessings one by one, and honestly, we couldn't count them ton by ton either. We're a truly blessed people.
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