Count Your Blessings

Job 42:3

“Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

I was attending a Freedom small group one semester. A bunch of guys going through the curriculum of letting God free you from all the junk we seem to hold on to can really put things in perspective. As I sat and listened to these grown men and their stories, I was quickly humbled. Stories about abuse, parental failure, relationship failure, and hurtful words that some men have not been able to shake off were hard to hear. I could not help but see how these men are now getting free from what Satan meant to destroy them. Now, there past issues have become a testimony of God’s saving grace. I got to watch these men wake up from a grave of oppression to a new life of grace and mercy in Christ Jesus. What wonderful thing to behold.

Some of these men had life turn bad on them when they were kids. They did not invite it nor did they turn to rebellion and invite these hard times; they just happened. For some, decades later, they are sitting in this room hearing of how Jesus came to set them free from things they were not the author of. You have heard the phrase, “Bad things happen to good people.” Well Jesus said in John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

The story of Job is a hard one to read for anyone. In the end, Job tells the Lord that even he said and did some things reacting to his circumstances and he was wrong. He did not understand. In Job 42:3 Job tells the Lord, “You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” Life does not always feed you prime rib. When life serves up a bunch of moldy leftovers, we all should remember what Job told the Lord.

The last few chapters of Job are God speaking to Job.  It reads like a rebuke where God is asking Job such questions as “did you hold back the sea and tell it where to stop?”  After God gets through rebuking Job, he states in verse 3 that God is too wonderful for even him to fully understand.  God also speaks to his friends, not Elihu but the other three.  He says to go and sacrifice an offering and have Job pray for you so that He will not deal with them according to their folly.  The Bible says that after Job prayed for his friends, God restored everything back to Job and more.  You can say that prayer was the catalyst for Job to be restored.  Job could have been really angry with them and hated them for all their accusations.  Instead, Job humbled himself before God and everything was restored. 

Are you still at the point in your life where you look around and say all this is someone else’s fault?  Job had to humble himself before God restored him. God has things in store for us “too wonderful” for us to understand.  Instead of retracing your actions to justify innocence, you may want to thank God for giving you life and count your blessings like the old church hymn says.  Below are the lyrics for the hymn. Use it as a prayer today.

Count Your Blessings

1. 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 has done.
   • Refrain:
     Count your blessings, name them one by one,
     Count your blessings, see what God has done!
     Count your blessings, name them one by one,
     *Count your many blessings, see what God has done.
     [*And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.]
2. 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.
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 [*wealth can never buy]
   Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.
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.