Johnson Oatman Jr. was born the son of an excellent singer. He would soon discover he had not been blessed as a singer. Then he aspired to be a great preacher but lack the communication skills necessary to be the speaker of his dreams. It wasn’t until he was in his thirties that he discovered his greatest talent. He could write songs. For the rest of his life he worked hard to write songs everyday. Each year he completed over 200 hymns and when his life was over more than 5,000 Christian anthems had been written by his pen. His most famous is entitled “When Upon Life’s Billows.” In my Church we just called it “Count Your Blessings.” Maybe the song was born out of his search for his own voice or maybe it was born out of how blessed he was as an adult in his songwriting career. Whatever the case his words still inspire people over 120 years later.

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.

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

I have been thinking of this song the last few days for several reasons. First, my life has been blessed with a new home for my family and I. God opened doors for us to buy a permanent home here in Adrian Missouri. Second, that purchase got my wife talking about all of the blessings that have led up to this purchase. We have been blessed by the sale of our home in Alaska last fall. We have been blessed by the sale of every home we have ever owned and all of them have at least made us a small amount of equity. We have been blessed by having no major expenses the last few years. We have experienced no accidents, no medical issues, and no big financial blows. God has blessed us over and over again. This latest house is just one of the ways we have been blessed in our lives.

Finally, I have been thinking about the overall concept of the song. Even Christians need to be continually reminded to count their blessings. It should be a natural thing to do, but it rarely is for most people. We have to purposely stop and think through all the ways God has blessed each one of us. I love the idea of counting them one by one, maybe even saying them out loud or writing them down. How wonderful it would be for each of us to stop today and start a list of all the ways God has blessed us. It may just surprise us what the Lord hath done.