Counted

There's this song I know. I think you guys'll know it too. It goes like this

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

How many times have you sung this song I wonder? I'm asking myself as i am you, this very question. You see, when you tell someone to count their blessings and see how impossible they are, they go and get you a list of all the cars they've got, lotteries that they won, clothes they bought, job promotions they've earned, you know....all the big stuff. I wonder, how often do we remember that
we also have to count the blessings of clean water? clean air?
How about not dying the past 300 times you walked down a staircase and didn't fall? How about a full set of fingers? Eyes that work, glass cups that don't shatter every time we set them down on the table a little too hard, what about phone batteries that don't explode or short circuit every 5 seconds when we use them? No....we don't remember that stuff.

Some of you might say, that you've got cancer or a tumor, or heavy financial problems, maybe you've not gotten a child for 15 or so years in your marriage, maybe you lost a loved one, maybe you failed some kind high level exam.

I wouldn't blame you for having doubts or feeling down. We ARE* human after all, we can't help but feel disappointed in life when things turn out badly. But at times we've got to try to see the blessing behind every burden. Life has taught many if not most of us that there's a triumph in every trial, one way or another. Sometimes we stare so long and hard at that trial that we can't believe or even see the triumph. Sometimes we may even underestimate the triumph that comes.

God always has a plan or a purpose. Just imagine the things that could have gone wrong and see that the fact that they didn't are blessing in themselves. You didn't get aborted or miscarried as a pregnancy did you? Didn't die of some childhood disease before being able to walk right? You went to school, you got to watch cartoons or tv shows, got to grow up. Never poked a pencil in your face and blinded yourself when you were a kid and playing very dangerously did you? i can't possibly name all the blessings that have come in and out of anyone's lives, including my own. The bible says that we should praise the Lord in good times and bad. There's a reason for all this. 

Who knows whether the reason that your car broke down on the road is so that you wouldn't meet robbers on the way? What if you missed playing the greatest football game of your life? God could have saved you from breaking your neck or spine? What if the internet or tv isn't working and hasn't been working for some reason in the last two days? God could be making you have no excuse not to study for the exam you need to pass. What if a relative of yours that had just become a born-again Christian died yesterday, God could have called him/her home so that they wouldn't miss heaven when they eventually sin again.

I'm not telling or asking you to be happy about bad things that happen. I'm saying that instead of blowing yourself down, you can lift your head high and rejoice, praise God, if bad things happen, you've got a good God to take care of you, and take care of everything. Whenever the world comes to try to slap you around, just count your blessings, name them one by one... and you'd be surprised at what the Lord has done.


Countless Love, Stars and Countless Blessings...
- TRJ