Count Your Blessings ...

As the hymn puts it:

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.

Ordinarily, we “count our blessings” by noting what God has done for us … and they are many, of course: from the breath of life to the hope of eternity, from the smell of freshly brewed coffee to the delight of a pepperoni pizza – and the gift of the church of Jesus Christ, the Bible, pastors and missionaries; sun rise over the mountains, the crash of ocean waves; the arc of gull’s wing, the buzz of a bee, and a couple of billion other things, great and small.

But I’d like to take this notion of counting on a slightly different tact.

Count the good and decent things YOU’VE DONE over the years, and will likely do today: kindly words spoken to a friend in need; a more than generous check given to the LORD's work; every prayer you’ve said for family and friends; a smile given to the young lady behind the counter; a dollar bill given to a homeless man on the street; the mission trip you went on; a time when your shared your faith with a friend; all those times when you walk humbly with God, when you do just things for the folks on the other end of the stick, when you stand tall for Christ and let his light shine through your life; when mercy and love and tenderness pour out of your heart – these and a couple of million other things, great and small.

So, count your blessings today, name them one by one, and it will surprise what the LORD hath done THROUGH YOU!