Count Your Blessings
The phrase “count your blessings” is a phrase said in many different instances. I’m sure you’ve said it to comfort friends and loved ones and likewise have heard it said to you. I have had people say this to me many different times. Often, this phrase is given as words of “encouragement”. When you are down in the dumps and your “spiritual” friend is trying to give you support, “I know this seems bad right now but take it from me it could be so much worse. Count your blessings.” Other times people utter these words to you after you’ve just experienced near disaster as if to say, “You should be grateful that was only as bad as it was! Count your blessings”. Both these examples seem to be reasonable responses to show support to the ones we care about. However, I would like to suggest another perspective which in my opinion truly gives the most power to this phrase. Granted, it is appropriate to stop and give thanks for what “didn’t happen”, however, I believe that giving thanks for what “did happen” is also important. To take it further, to stop in give thanks for the “bad” things that happened will take your faith to a whole new level. In my journey, I have discovered that true spiritual growth happens in the midst of the storms of life. When every direction I looked seemed like a battle or something I wished I could just turn and run from. It is in those moments, God is asking me to trust him. People say all the time, why do bad things happen to good people? It is my opinion it is God trying to draw someone near him. We grow in our faith and need for him during struggles and tend to think about him less when life is peaches and cream. If you are going through a storm of life, odds are, God is trying to get your attention. We have a God of abundance not lack. He wants to increase your blessings. Faith is like a muscle it must be stretched almost to the point of breaking to strengthen. There have been times when I have been rejected, lied to, stolen from, slandered and disowned. When I begin to see these horrible times as Gods way of offering me to look toward him, it was only then that I caught a glimpse of peace beyond all understanding. I have lived through all those times in life and now look back and say, “Wow, God is so good! I wouldn’t change those hard distressing times for anything!”. Every day I appreciate what I have now because I can look back at where I have been. Now, when tough times come, I remember that I’ve not only made it through storms before but received abundance of goodness on the other side. I count those horrible times as my greatest blessings. “In the day of prosperity be joyful, But in the day of adversity consider: Surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, So that man can find out nothing will come after him.” Ecclesiastes 7:14. In other words, be joyful in the good things but consider and give thanks for God’s work in you in the day of adversity. God balances the two against each other. You cannot know “good times” if you have not experienced the “bad times.” It is ALL for a purpose!