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,
Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.
Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
And you will keep singing as the days go by.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
BIBLE REFERENCE: Ephesians 1:3-6 Ezekiel 34:26 Proverbs 10:6 Deuteronomy 11:26-28 Philippians 4:6 Philippians 4:19
Lyrics: Johnson Oatman, Jr Born: April 21, 1856, near Medford, New Jersey
Died: September 25, 1922, Norman, Oklahoma
Composer: Edwin Othello Excell Born: December 13, 1851, Stark County, Ohio
Died: June 10, 1921, Chicago, Illinois
This hymn certainly ranks as one of the most familiar numbers in our hymnals. It is one of the songs that many of us first sang with gusto during our early Sunday School days, yet one that we still enjoy singing in our gospel type of services.
Rev. Johnson Oatman, Jr., was one of the important and prolific gospel song writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was born near Medford, New Jersey, on April 21, 1856. As a child he became acquainted with the hymns of the church through the singing talents of his father.
At the age of nineteen Oatman joined the Methodist Church and several years later was granted a license to preach in local Methodist congregations. Though he wrote over 5,000 hymn texts, Oatman was busily engaged throughout his life in a mercantile business and later as an administrator for a large insurance company in New Jersey. Other gospel favorites by Johnson Oatman include “Higher Ground, and “No, Not One!”
“Count Your Blessings” is generally considered to be Oatman’s finest hymn. If first appeared in Songs for Young People, compiled and published by Edwin O. Excell in 1897. It has been sung all over the world. One writer has stated, “Like beam of sunlight it has brightened up the dark places of the earth.”
Perhaps no American hymn was ever received with such enthusiasm in Great Britain as this hymn. The London Daily, in giving an account of a meeting presided over by Gypsy Smith, reported, Mr. Smith announced the hymn ‘Count Your Blessings.’ Said he, ‘In South London the men sing it, the boys whistle it, and the women rock their babies to sleep on this hymn.’ “During the great revival in Wales it was one of the hymns the hymns sung at every service along with such Welsh favorites as “Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah” and “O That Will be Glory.”
“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.” Cicero
We as Christians find it hard to see the blessings of God in our own lives because so often our eyes are on others, seeing what they have and continue to gain, feeling somehow that we have been cheated. Some wrongly feel that true blessings are to be found in the amount of earthly possessions we obtain.
God wants us to be thankful in whatever state of life we are in. Philippians 4:19 tells us to be content in whatever state you are in. Paul speaking of himself writes; "I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. Philippians 4:12. And then in verse 19 he writes, But my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Jesus Christ. The Lord shall supply your needs not you every wants.
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