I don’t know about you, but I spend a lot of my days focusing on the bad, annoying, icky stuff that is happening around me, to me, or even because of me. 

It seems like people are somehow wired that way. Maybe it’s an innate part of some people. Or maybe it’s a product of the media culture that we are surrounded by on a daily basis that throws negative stories at us like tiny firey darts, and sometimes like large, explosive bombs. 

There are, of course, people who tend towards optimism and finding joy in the small things, but I think there are times when all of us get caught up in focusing on the bad, negative that have, will, or even CAN happen to us. 

How much do you think we limit ourselves when we focus solely on what we don’t have or won’t have? Even just writing that and thinking it through, I am overwhelmed by it. Particularly by the piece in which we project it on to our future selves, limiting the possibilities that could be. 

A song that has stuck out to me recently is Counting Every Blessing by Rend Collective. I’ve always rolled my eyes at the little trinkets and home decorations that read “Count Your Blessings”. The first reason is probably because it’s telling me what to do, and the second being that it’s turned into one of those cliche things people just have around like, “Live, Laugh, Love”. 

But the reason that this song has stuck out to me because each line is a perfect description of the dichotomy that it is to live life as a follower of Christ. See evidence below: 

[Verse 1]

I was blind, now I’m seeing in colour

I was dead, now I’m living forever

I had failed, but You were my Redeemer

I’ve been blessed beyond all measure

[Verse 2]

I was lost, now I’m found by the Father

I’ve been changed from a ruin to treasure

I’ve been given a hope and a future

I’ve been blessed beyond all measure

[Verse 3]

You were there in the valley of shadows

You were there in the depth of my sorrows

You’re my strength, my hope for tomorrow

I’ve been blessed beyond all measure

[Bridge]

Surely Your goodness pursues me

Surely Your heart is still for me

I will remember Your mercies all my days

Through every storm and gale

[Chorus]

I am counting every blessing, counting every blessing

Letting go and trusting when I cannot see

I am counting every blessing, counting every blessing

Surely every season You are good to me

Every day we wake up to things that make us sad, angry, disappointed, confused, lonely, hurt, etc. It is the world that we live in and we cannot escape it with our easily-lived middle class lives, our distraction of choice, or our shiny Instagram accounts. 

Yet, at the same time that we live among these things above, because of who Christ is and what he did for us, we live with color, joy, light, strength, hope, and so much more.

We will live and wrestle with this inevitable dichotomy for the rest of our lives until Christ calls us home or comes back for us. There is no escaping it. 

But in the meantime, while we are blind, dead failures living in the valley of shadows, we can count each blessing knowing that in the midst of it God is ever-present and ever-working. We will see him when we seek him with our whole hearts, and he will reveal to us what it is that he is doing. Perhaps not in the timing that we would prefer, but we still hold on and trust when we cannot see.