Keeping Count

     Do you ever notice how many things we count?  From the time we're toddlers we learn to count objects, then time, to use numbers to create equations and get answers to ever increasingly complicated problems. And maybe we get stuck right there...counting problems. We begin to count our failures, heartaches, opportunities lost, hopes unrealized, all the times in a day when we could have, should have done better, differently, responded with more grace, gentleness, peace, etc.
   I was at a training seminar on Saturday and we had an exercise to make words that were meaningful to what we wanted in our homeschooling and without real intention, I ended up with Count Joy. In a moment Holy Spirit began putting a finger on that, impressing it upon me. Count Joy.  He asked me the question. What are you counting?  As you pursue peace, what are you keeping track of?  The simple answer, all the times I fail to respond in peace, feel at peace, act out of peace.  I knew what He was getting at.  I'm counting the wrong things.  I'm counting my failures, but He's counting my victories.  He's giving me the victories, and I'm so busy wrestling over this, I glaze right over victories...because I should be that anyway, right?  That should be my norm, so why count the expected.  That's my perspective, not His.  He's bringing me from glory to glory, and I'm so fixed on the things that don't look like glory, that it is stunting my growth in this area.
  The other two words that we discussed that Saturday were manifest and magnify.  If we want to manifest what is beauty, truth and goodness, we must magnify it, highlight it everywhere we see it, every chance we get. To magnify is to make something bigger, or see something as bigger.  In God's case to begin to see Him and His work more like it really is, and as we magnify that, it becomes manifest in and through us. How can I adequately pursue one thing while magnifying it's antithesis?  My best response is to confess my failures simply, humbly to a merciful, gracious God, breaking its power over me, calling it what it is in truth and turning quickly back to the goodness I pursue, desire. 

So, I'm going to start counting new things.  I'm going to write them down as a testiment of God's goodness and magnify His work in my life.  Want to join me?







 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 hath done.

Refrain:
Count your blessings, name them one by one;
Count your blessings, see what God hath done;
Count your blessings, name them one by one;
Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.
 (When we count our failures, we're seeing what we in the flesh have done but when we count beauty, truth and goodness, we are counting the very works of God.)

2 Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, ev'ry doubt will fly,
And you will be singing as the days go by. [Refrain]

3 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
Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high. [Refrain]

4 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. [Refrain]

Story behind the hymn
Song

Furthest away when you're seeking

  Does it ever seem that when you're really wanting something, pursuing something, it seems the furthest away?  Hope seems to fade sometimes right before the breaking point or turning point?  Have you tried to change the way you respond to people or situations, be more intentional about something and progressively all you notice are your failures in that area? There becomes an increasingly stark, apparent difference between what you want- who you want to be - and what you really are here and now.  Everywhere you turn seems to highlight inadequacy and the gap between what you want to be - ought to be- and what you really are, raw, right here and now in the midst of the mess of life.

  Is the darkness greatest just before the dawn? Is this just a sign that God is revealing the mess and the heart of it so He can clean it up?  Does this mean the breakthrough is right around the corner?  I have more questions than answers right now, but I cling to the hope that this desire, pursuit was placed in my heart not to have me seeking after the impossible or leave me in a fruitless search but to first stir up desire in order to cultivate the ground for the seeds of peace to be planted and thrive.  Maybe that's where I'm at right now...the ground is being churned up, prepared and it feels anything but peaceful...
   Peace has been like that for me this week.  Illusive.  More appealing than ever, yet seeming so far away.  The list of things to do seems like a mountain compared to the time to do it and right in the center of it all are my children.  These little ones that I wrap up tight in my arms or snuggle close to on the couch - taking a few minutes to love on, to hold what is most precious and tell them so.  Yet, it doesn't seem like enough.  In the midst of this, I came across this verse: Isaiah 54:14 "All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children."  Ahhh.  Yes.... This has become my earnest prayer, my hope.  Whether my schedule has me home or away, what I really want, what I need is for the Lord to be their teacher and mine.  
   

Wonderful Peace
1 Far away in the depths of my spirit tonight
Rolls a melody sweeter than psalm;
In celestial-like strains it unceasingly falls
O’er my soul like an infinite calm.

Refrain:
Peace! peace! wonderful peace,
Coming down from the Father above;
Sweep over my spirit forever, I pray,
In fathomless billows of love.

2 What a treasure I have in this wonderful peace,
Buried deep in the heart of my soul;
So secure that no power can mine it away,
While the years of eternity roll. [Refrain]



3 I am resting tonight in this wonderful peace,
Resting sweetly in Jesus’ control;
For I’m kept from all danger by night and by day,
And His glory is flooding my soul. [Refrain]

4 And I know when I rise to that city of peace,
Where the Author of peace I shall see,
That one strain of the anthems the ransomed will sing,
In that heavenly kingdom shall be: [Refrain]

5 O soul, are you here without comfort or rest,
Walking down the rough pathway of time?
Make Jesus your friend ere the shadows grow dark;
O accept this sweet peace so sublime. [Refrain]

Story behind
Acapella version

    Driving through the rises and valleys of rolling hills, the eastern woodland valley floor is covered with last year's deciduous, faded foliage like an invitation to come away and walk in secret places.  The trees stretch winter's bare capillaries toward the sky, willing for spring, beginning to feel life-giving circulation coursing through their dormant veins.  My eyes search each distal branch for signs, soft bulges of red, pink, white or green bursting from the internal DNA. Scattered trees carrying light, wispy pillows of pale green or bursting with Spring flowers. I search for them like I search for  Peace, hungry for every little sign of it in my life, grabbing hold of the hope every swollen bud offers, willing the evidences, manifestations of it to show. Each time I see it, I'm joyful, grateful, half surprised to

see it there right in the middle of life's chaos and craziness.  It's like the peace David describes in Psalm 23: lead by green pastures and still waters, confident of the Presence in dark valleys and being filled and satisfied right in the midst of the Enemy's camp. It's not about external circumstances but about the One who walks with us in the quiet and the chaotic places.

    Just as the roots suck nutrients in through the roots and the heart of the tree gives it life, so also, Psalm 14:30 says: "A heart at peace gives life to the body."  When the heart is grounded in in the nutrients of fellowship with God and His Words, life surges through the body, flowing out of peace. And over and over again a heart at peace comes back to faith, to confidence not in circumstances or in the fact that everything will be alright or in easy, pleasant times but in the Eternally Existing Three in One seated on His thrown in absolute power and wisdom - every expression of His person being for me and loving me and watching over me and working in me, being invested in my well-being and my being found in Him.  Confidence in an unshakeable kingdom and more unshakeable KING, learning from him and relying on Him in the midst of every little moment gives me strength to overcome my fears, quell my rising anxiety, settle my troubled, struggling heart and respond in quiet grace. I don't have to enter into the chaos of the storm or daily battleground but can be an onlooker who sees it and speaks/carries peace into it, seeing the glory of God breaking through in 100 different ways and revealing Christ to the world, through me life.  Let it be!

Because He Lives!

Because He lives - Amen! newer version
Because He Lives 
Story behind the hymn