Tag: life’s troubles

Count Your Blessings

The next entry for my Blog is Count Your Blessings which was written by Johnson Oatman in 1897 with the music written by Edwin O. Excell. It is a staple song in most Christian hymnals. A link to the song being performed is at the bottom of the Blog.

Count Your Blessings

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.

Refrain:
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
Count your blessings, see what God has done!
Count your blessings, name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.

When you look at others with their lands and gold,
Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;
Count your many blessings—*money cannot buy [*wealth can never buy]
Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.

So, amid the conflict whether great or small,
Do not be discouraged, God is over all;
Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

As I write this entry in March, 2020; the world is struggling with the COVID-19 virus. We are seeing countries shut their borders, cities confine people to their homes, schools closing, travel being suspended, the stock markets in shambles, and most of us are probably wondering how this will all turn out. Some of our questions are: will I get the virus, when will it all end, how will I ultimately be impacted physically, emotionally, and financially. As I thought about a song that best seems to show an understanding of a life/world filled with troubles and what it looks like on the other side; this song, Count Your Blessings, came to mind. Even though the song was written in 1897, it is still relevant today and the troubles we are facing.

As we listen to the news and surf the internet, we only hear about what could happen as we face this global pandemic. We are definitely in a very tempestuous time filled with fear as well as selfishness. We are frustrated and discouraged as our grocery stores all have empty shelves, as we are all looking for the same life necessities. We see people coming out of the stores with more supplies than they could ever utilize, while we are hoping to get enough to survive for the next few days or a couple of weeks. So, we become extremely frustrated as we come up empty in our search and see others hoarding the things we need. As we become more frustrated, irritated, and discouraged; we start focusing on the what-ifs and fall into the glass is half-empty mindset. What we really need to focus on is how blessed we are and what will ultimately happen to us as believers. As we start to become swallowed up by the worries of life, we need to stop the worrying and start thanking God for what we do have, how he has blessed us, and what eternity looks like. Keep in mind that our life on earth is just a blip in the eternal life Jesus has given to us. Many of us share some of the same blessings, and each of us will have unique blessings. As you count your blessings, think about things such as jobs, housing, food, significant others, children, friends, possessions, health, eternal life, and these are just high-level categories for you to think about as you focus on your blessings. As the song says, I truly think you will be very surprised at what God has done!

Outside of the current time of fear from the pandemic, do you just feel worn down and beaten by the world on a daily basis? I know that each of us face our own challenges every single day in some aspect of our life. These trials ultimately become a burdensome worry that saps our strength, drags us down, and negatively impacts all of those around us. The song refers to these as our cross, the one we end up carrying every day. Jesus also carried a cross, the only difference is that the cross he carried was for each of us. Our cross is basically our challenges in life, whereas the cross of Jesus represented all of our burdens and our sins for every day of our life. He carried that cross long ago so that we could forever give our burdens to him. I realize it is easy to say to give our burdens to Jesus, but isn’t that what he told us to do and isn’t that why he died for each of us who accept him as our Lord and Savior? Consider all that he has done for us and has promised us and it will make the burdens much lighter. In Matthew 11:28 we find God’s promise, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” I do understand this is easier said than done, but we will make a lot more progress by trying than we will by worrying and trying to bear the burdens alone.

As you have thought about your challenges as well as the peace that God offers us, know that God can handle whatever confronts us, whether it is a small challenge or a completely overwhelming challenge. He ultimately overcomes our challenges by giving us the strength, hope, wisdom, and support we need; and many times, he turns those challenges into blessings. In Psalm 103:1-5, we find where David is helping us all to realize who God is and that he is always there to pick us up: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” We serve a mighty God who meets our every need and gives us more blessings than we can ever count; in fact, it would be difficult to count all of the blessings he gives us in a single day. See if you can write down every blessing, large or small, that you have received in the past 24 hours.

In closing this entry for the week, I want to ask you a question. With everything going in the world today, including the pandemic, are you living a life of fear or a life knowing that God is control?

Click to Hear Count Your Blessings

Trust in You – Entry #2 of 4

In the Blog entry for today, I would like to perform a deep dive of the chorus in this song.

When You don’t move the mountains
I’m needing You to move
When You don’t part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When You don’t give the answers
As I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You

We are told by Jesus that faith can move mountains and I believe that if God wanted to move a physical mountain; he could certainly do it especially since he is the one who created the mountain. In this song, I do not think the writer is referring to a physical mountain. In our lives, the mountains we face are more likely fear, emotion, frustration, desperation, guilt, and loneliness. These are not the mountains created by God, but ones we created by our own actions or actions taken by others; most of these were created by our lack of faith. We do need these mountains removed because they are blocking our way and we don’t see any path around, over, or through the mountain. We know God can move these mountains and we need him to make it happen so we can get on with our lives. Note the writer using the word “When”, which seems to imply we are just waiting on God to make this happen for us.

The song continues by comparing our troubles to the waters that block our path. We probably see these waters as the ocean since we cannot see the other side. The waters were parted for the Israelites and they walked across the dry land where the water was parted, and their enemies disappeared into the water and their escape from bondage was complete. So why not expect God to do the same thing for us? We stand on the shore of the vast ocean of our troubles and just wish he would give us the path to cross and when we get to the other side, our troubles would vanish into the sea. I suppose we are similar to the Israelites in that we just assume our time is over since we have nowhere to go.

The last lament in the chorus is God not giving answers. I often hear people complain that he does not answer their prayers. Maybe we have prayed for something over and over for years and still do not believe we see any results. Is he still listening to us? Why has he forgotten us? Too many times we pray and we also tell God what we want the answer to be. We do not know and understand his plan for us or others; he will answer the prayer in his timing and in accordance with his plan. We know he has an eternal home for us, but he also has a plan for us. He does have answers for us, but maybe the answers are not always heard since they may not be what we wanted to hear, maybe there are more lessons to be learned before the answer is given, or maybe we are asking for our will to be done as opposed to his will being done. This is what trust is all about, it is knowing he will answer.

The end of the chorus is the key to our faith; having mountains moved, having waters parted, and having our prayers answered. We finally reach a point where we come to our knees and realize we must put our complete faith in God, we realize we just can’t do it without him. We don’t merely ask for help, we cry out for help and we put our faith in the hands of God and in his plans for us. I love the fact that the phrase “I will trust” is repeated three times, this is what we need every day.