Count Your Blessings Name Them One By One

Count Your Blessings Name Them One by One

"In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing." Philippians 2:14

Yesterday I shared a lesson I learned this summer: Fear God -- Please God. Well here is lesson number 2 -- Stop complaining!

We sing the old hymn "Count Your Many Blessings" but how many times do we really stop to do that? How easy it to fall into complaining vs. gratitude. When you start counting your blessings, naming them one by one -- you really do get surprised at all that God has done.

Conversely, complaining can produce the same negative results. Start complaining about one thing, and you will be amazed at how many other things you can find to complain about! Complaining makes my issues seem much larger than they really are. We complain about the temperature: too hot or too cold. We complain about so many things rather than counting our blessings.

Dr. Woodrow Kroll was scheduled to speak this past weekend. Thanks to Hurricane Earl, his flights were cancelled. Commuter flights were cancelled up and down the East Coast. So he never made it. As we talked on the phone, I inquired about his grandson, Thaddeus, who has faced a number of physical challenges since birth.

Thaddeus is 8 years old and has a very rare disease. In his short 8 years of life, he has already had 39 surgeries! He was born without ears, has had one artificial ear -- so he is deaf and cannot speak. He has a trachea to breathe and has never tasted food orally. He is fed through a feeding tube.

And by the way, in addition to those challenges, he has been diagnosed with autism, obsessive compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder. Any one of these would be enough to send me into orbit! And his name means: "a gift from God!"

Wow. When Dr. Kroll shared this with me, the Holy Spirit whacked me over the head. And I began to think about my problems and how ridiculously small they look compared to what Thaddeus has already faced in his eight years.

Sometimes we need perspective. I have purposed to stop complaining, and instead, start counting my blessings. Thanks, Thaddeus, for teaching me the importance of gratitude! -- Bill Welte is President and CEO of America's KESWICK

Digging Deeper: Proverbs 10; Proverbs 8-9; 2 Corinthians 3

Dig This Quote: Oh, but this word eternity, eternity, eternity; this word everlasting, everlasting, everlasting; this word forever, forever, forever, will even break the hearts of the damned in ten thousand pieces…Impenitent sinners in Hell shall have end without end, death without death, night without day, mourning without mirth, sorrow without solace, and bondage without liberty. The damned shall live as long in Hell as God himself shall live in heaven. —Sinclair Ferguson

Determined Digging: Level 1 --Lamentations 3:21-23; Level 2 -- Psalm 139:1-6

Determined Praying: Prayerlessness is the state in which one prays less than he ought, less than the Father desires, and less then that one himself knows he should. -- Jack Taylor