Count Your Blessings

Jesus Christ wants to give you a “Faith Life.” The starting point is found in the will of God. When doing God’s will, one is most happy. The explicit will of God is that “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (I Thessalonians 5:18) It is the will of God that you have a thankful disposition. Do those around you consider you to have one? 

Your disposition can be changed by your resolve to begin being a person who is expressive of appreciation; a person who expresses thanks to God and people. Our predecessors realized this and set aside a day of Thanksgiving.

It is good that we have such a day. However, Charles Dickens had an alternate idea. He proposed that we reverse the practice and have a day for griping and use the rest of the year for daily expressing thanks to God and people.

If you resolve that your disposition and mental attitude will be of a thankful nature it will amaze you, refresh your friends, and please God. That is —- 

When we start to count flowers, 
we cease to count weeds.

When we start to count blessings,
we cease to count needs,

When we start to count laughter,
we cease to count tears.

When we count happy memories,
we cease to count fears.

William Law lost his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge when his conscience would not allow him to take the required oath of allegiance to the first Hanoverian monarch, King George I. He later asked, “Who is the greatest saint? It is not the one who prays most or who does most, it is the one who is most thankful.”

Thankfulness and happiness go together like a hand and glove. It is not happy people who are thankful, it is thankful people who are happy.

Wouldn’t it be good if at the end of life your epitaph could be like that of Oliver Goldsmith: “He touched nothing he didn’t adorn.” Thankfulness does that.

Scripture exhorts us to give thanks in all things. All things? Yes, all things. We may not feel good in all things. To consistently give thanks acknowledges not all things are good, but God is always good. Therefore our focus must be on God, not things. The great drama of the Bible is that God is at work on behalf of His people at all times, no matter what happens. Remember that.

We might well pray, “Along with your many gifts, give me one thing more, a thankful heart.”