Count Your Blessings

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

James 1:17

It's impossible to be thankful and, at the same time, grumpy, cantankerous, critical, or ill-tempered. That's a lesson Johnson Oatman wanted to teach young people in his song, "Count Your Blessings."

Johnson was born in New Jersey just before the Civil War. His father had a powerful voice which some people claimed was the best singing voice in the East. That's why, as a boy, Johnson Jr., always wanted to stand beside his father in church.

When Johnson was a young man, he stood alongside his father in another way. He became a partner in Johnson Oatman & Son, his dad's mercantile business. At age 19, Johnson was an active part in his church. He often preached, but never was a full-time minister, for he enjoyed the business would and found it paid his bills, giving him freedom to minister without cost.

In 1892, with his father's voice undoubtedly ringing in his memory, Johnson began writing hymns. He averaged 200 hymns and gospel songs a year--5,000 during the course of his lifetime, among them: "Higher Ground," "No Not One," "The Last Mile of the Way," and this one, "Count Your Blessings," which was published in a song book for young people in 1897. It reflected Johnson's optimistic faith, and has been a lesson to many ever since.

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Martin Luther wrote in his book, Table Talk: "The greater God's gifts and works, the less they are regarded." We tend to exhibit a degree of thanksgiving in reverse proportion to the amount of blessings we've received. A hungry man is more thankful for his morsel than a rich man for his heavily-laden table. A lonely woman in a nursing home will appreciate a visit more than a popular woman with a party thrown in her honor.

If the birds only burst into song once a year, we'd all pay close attention. But because they are singing every morning, we scarcely bother to listen.

Now is a good time to lay this book aside and deliberately thank God for something you've never before mentioned in thanksgiving. Count your blessings. Name them one by one.

And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

Taken from the book: Then Sings My Soul