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