COUNT (Psalm 103)

Psalm 103:15 talks about how even flowers of the field (like this

one) are transitory, just as we are in our earthly existence.

(Part of a series on the 48 psalms recommended for study during times of "feeling down," from pastor/counselor David Seamands' book Healing for Damaged Emotions.)

Psalm 103 has a lot in common with an old hymn, “Count Your Blessings,” that from time to time has helped lift me out of emotional doldrums. First published in a hymnal for young people, it later reached an international audience when evangelist Gypsy Smith used it in his London crusades. The London Daily reported: “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 a must-sing at every service along with “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” and “O That Will be Glory.”  Its author, Johnson Oatman Jr., wrote hymns on the side after his “day job” in the mercantile and insurance businesses. When he died in 1922, he left behind 5,000 hymn texts, the best-known probably being “Higher Ground,” “No, Not One,” and “Count Your Blessings,” whose chorus resounds:

 Count your blessings—name them one by one; 

Count your many blessings see what God hath done.

With that, Oatman summarized the whole of Psalm 103, in which David simply praises God. Praise and gratitude are God’s remedy for “feeling down,” and this psalm is a great starter list for any of us.
  

ALL, ALL, ALL

The word “all” is prominent:

*ALL his inmost being praised God (v. 1)

*ALL God’s benefits were remembered (v. 2)

*ALL our sins can be forgiven (v. 3)

*ALL healing comes from Him (v. 3). I’m aware that some sectors of faith claim that if you’re a true Christian, God will give you perfect health. Miracles of healing do happen, but they are rare and are not the norm.  It is true that when we’re sick and get well, it’s the grace of God that we can overcome illness. (I write this as I cough off the remnants of a cold, remembering times when I gasped for breath with pneumonia, but through modern medicine—a grace of God—I lived.)  If healing is in the atonement, why hasn’t healing come for people like “Joni,” paralyzed Christian author and artist who has inspired millions toward a closer walk with God? The answer to that must wait until heaven.

*ALL the oppressed will find justice (v. 6). This may not happen suddenly, but it’s God’s will that this wrong will be made right. For example, witness today’s ministries to women caught in sex slavery—pulled from it, one at a time. Or children removed from abusive homes and put in Christian foster homes.

The final “all’s” of this psalm refer to the scope of praise to God. It’s “all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will” and “all his works everywhere in his dominion.” 

THAT PART ABOUT SIN

Many years ago I received a phone call from a young woman who was frantic about losing God’s love because she’d yielded to sexual sin. I went to her apartment and listened to her cries for mercy. I wondered how to comfort her with the assurance of God’s forgiveness for confessed sin. At just the right time, God reminded me of this duo of verses, memorized long before:

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far as he removed our transgressions from us. (vv. 11-12)

This was written long before Columbus sailed across the ocean and didn’t fall off the ledge—contrary to the common fear that the earth was flat. Later, others would sail around the world, “proof” of roundness. North and south are established points on our globe--there are north poles and south poles. But east to west have no “poles.” They blend continually.

THE BIGGEST THANK-YOU

After exploring the grandeur of the universe, the psalmist comes back to our human condition. Like flowers and grass, we don’t live forever on this planet. Yet through the promise of eternal life we can anticipate His mercy and a life after this one—with Him. Johnson Oatman got it “right,” reminding us (as do the final stanzas of Psalm 103): 

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.

Going higher

This stairwell in my friend’s home makes one stop and think!

            At first, I was reminded of  Jacob’s dream of angels on a ladder or stairwell to heaven (Genesis 28). Then I recalled Paul’s testimony in Philippians 3:14: “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

            And then, I thought of a hymn inspired by that particular verse, “Higher Ground.”  It begins: “I’m pressing on the upward way, New heights I’m gaining every day; Still praying as I onward bound, ‘Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.’”

The lyrics, published in 1898, were written by Johnson Oatman (1856-1922), who, although ordained through the Methodist Episcopal Church, worked in retail and later insurance all his life. In his spare time he wrote an estimated 3,000-5,000 hymn lyrics, meaning he completed them at a rate of about four a week. A few have survived to this century, including this one, “Count Your Blessings,” “No, Not One!” and “I’m Living on the Hallelujah Side.”

Most of Oatman’s lyrics focused on Christian growth and personal victory,  expressing how it isn’t enough to just “know” Christ (through accepting His death for one’s sins) but also to “know” Him better and deeper. Thus this hymn, whose chorus goes:  “Lord, lift me up and let me stand/By faith on heaven’s tableland./A higher plain than I have found:/Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

            That “higher ground” includes growing in the traits expressed on my friend’s stairwell.  I don’t perform 100% on any of them, but that’s the essence of growing as a Christian –or, as Oatman wrote, aspiring to higher ground. Many of those traits are found in three “Christian living lists” of the New Testament.

            One is the so-called “love chapter” of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. It comes after Paul’s rebuke of flashy (and shallow) spirituality in that ancient church, taking them back to the basics of Christian love:  patience, kindness, refusing to envy or boast, and eleven more.   Another list is the “fruit of the Spirit” beginning in Galatians 5:22.  Again, Paul had defined what “not to do” by describing X-rated acts of the sinful. In contrast, the spirit-empowered person grows in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

            The third list, which I think best illustrates a spiritual stairwell, is in 2 Peter 1:3-7.  This portion of scripture discusses making one’s calling and “election” sure—in other words, giving true evidence that you are a growing believer.

Peter precedes his list with a command: “Make every effort to add to your faith” (1:3). We can’t ascend a stairwell without lifting a foot, and we can’t grow spiritually by expecting some outside force to zap us with the right attitudes and actions.  It takes deliberate changing of habits with dependence on the Holy Spirit to add to each of these:  goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love.

Peter adds: “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 8).

            There’s the word “know” again (in “knowledge”)--for to truly know Him is to aspire to the truly satisfying “Highest ground,” of eternity with Him.