Count Your Blessings
241

Text: Johnson Oatman, Jr. (1856–1922)
Music: Edwin O. Excell (1851–1921)
Tune name: BLESSINGS

Many a Latter- day Saint has found it useful to recall or think of this popular hymn in moments of discouragement. The hymn’s repeated reminder, “count your blessings,” is a motto that can change our outlook from self-pity and discouragement to one of gratitude.

Gratitude is essential for our spiritual well- being. President Joseph F. Smith wrote many years ago in the Juvenile Instructor: “The spirit of gratitude is always pleasant and satisfying because it carries with it a sense of helpfulness to others; it begets love and friendship, and engenders divine influence. Gratitude is said to be the memory of the heart.

“And where there is an absence of gratitude, either to God or man, there is the presence of vanity and the spirit of self- sufficiency” (quoted in Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1939], 262).

We are commanded throughout the scriptures to “thank the Lord thy God in all things” (D&C 59:7), to “let thy heart be full of thanks unto God” (Alma 37:37), and to be “always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive” (Alma 7:23). Our gratitude opens the way for the Lord to pour out additional blessings: “And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea, more” (D&C 78:19).

Some people look at life with no other purpose than to find out what is missing. This hymn exhorts us to move beyond such a narrow outlook, to rise above the corrosive effects of envy, and to realize that followers of Jesus Christ are heirs to the greatest of all blessings. J. Spencer Cornwall stated, “‘When upon Life’s Billows’ is a hymn for the moralist. Its value cannot be gainsaid, because many a worshipper on hearing or singing it is induced to contemplation on the blessings with which he is surrounded” (Stories of Our Mormon Hymns, 215).

This hymn was first published in E. O. Excell’s Songs for Young People in 1897. In the 1985 hymnal, the original title was restored, the key was lowered, some intricate rhythms were simplified in the chorus, and one note of the melody was changed: the last melody note in line 4 was raised to A instead of staying on G, reflecting the way the line is generally sung.