I just sent this to supporters of my work at UTC:
Dear Friend of the Study Center,
One of America's most prolific hymn writers was Johnson Oatman, Jr., of New Jersey. By the time he went to his reward in 1922, he had about three thousand hymns to his credit! One of his many famous songs is "Count Your Many Blessings." As it is often sung to a tune by Ira Sankey, the light-hearted feel of lyric and note can have a rather superficial sense to it. However, there are times when "count your many blessings" is serious and important spiritual counsel! We are in one of those times.
We are familiar these days with many voices speaking ill of our country and its Christian roots. This cynical spirit is part of the philosophy of the world we live in today. Sadly, many in the official Church, we might call it, have imbibed this spirit. These people, while professing the faith of Christianity, are not thankful for our Christian tradition. However, the Christian is not to be squeezed into the mold of the world around us (Romans 12:2).
The world disdains an attitude of thankfulness toward God for all the good so abundantly evident around us (Romans 1:21). We Christians, however, are jealous of the honour and glory of our heavenly Father, not only for the good of creation, but especially for the good of our redemption in Jesus, born of Mary on that first Christmas Day. We are also thankful for the good things that have been passed down to us from those believers who have gone before us. Another song-writer, King David, reminds us in Psalm 100, that when we enter our Lord's presence in prayer, we are to, "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name;" and a good way to do that is to tally up our blessings in Christ, that we may stir ourselves up to the thankfulness that our God deserves.
I think we may safely say that just about all of us are struggling to rejoice in the Lord these days. There are so many things grieving us. There have been natural disasters - such as tornados and a virus - regardless of where it came from - that is following its natural course. We also are grieved by the many wicked things we see done around us through ignorance or by evil intent. One of our greatest griefs in it all has been the way our worship and ministry have been adversely affected.
You can imagine that all the study centers at our various colleges and universities have had their share of struggles. I was recently talking with Drew Trotter, the out-going head of the Consortium of Christian Study Centers, and he told me that there are several study centers - like our own - that are presently in an especially difficult place in that we are only just now trying to lay the foundation for our ministries, yet our campuses are ghost towns. Yes, we can do things online - and I have - but the nature of our work requires the kind of personal interaction that only face-to-face conversations provide.
Nevertheless, Drew went on to say that, "at least you are doing something." And we have been "doing something." Through this past fall semester, I have held a weekly read-through of The Problem of Pain, both face-to-face at First Presbyterian and also on Zoom. I have published two online conversations with top scholars in their fields - one about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and another about Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings. I am working on a third such conversation, which I hope to publish next month. I have continued to pray on campus and meet with students, as we were able. I have also begun a conversation about moving forward with the annual UTC C. S. Lewis lecture for the spring of 2021. It can be done. It will not be what it has been in the past, but at least we are "doing something."
The whole approach of "doing something" - in a difficult time - is an approach to work and ministry of a positive nature. It is a refusal to give into a cynical mind-set. It is an exercise in faith: faith that God is still working out his purposes and that he is doing things we may not have dreamed of and of which we are not yet aware. He is a great God, and his mercy is everlasting.
It is also a posture of thankfulness. Counting our blessings is a turning away from the counting of our troubles forced upon us by the media and worldly-minded people around us. It is a refusal to see life without God. It is a choice to remember what the Scriptures say about:
who we are,
why we are here,
who God is,
what he has done,
and what he has promised to do.
And the more we think about it, the more we realize that we can never count all our blessings in the Lord! They are without number! And for this we are thankful, and here we find our joy.
To rejoice in the Lord requires being thankful. It is out of our thankfulness that we can be joyful. How can we not rejoice, considering how blessed we are in our Lord - whatever this life throws at us during our brief sojourn here.
Once we are able to retrieve our joy from the clutches of the unbelieving and cynical world around us, we are then free to remember what life is really about. We are free to see things from God's point-of-view again. This is what the apostle Paul does in his letter to the Philippians. "For me to live is Christ" (1:21), he says. Therefore, how does he live? "...this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (3:13,14).
But what does this look like practically? An example from Paul's ministry is found in 2 Corinthians 10, where, speaking of his ministry, he writes: "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ..." (vs. 3-5).
Friends, this is just what a Christian study center is about. We seek to encourage Christian thinking, the "bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." To stay on task, we need discernment. We seek truthful and compassionate engagement with this world, but we must be careful that we do not succumb to the distractions and pressures of this world. We also need prayer, for our warfare is spiritual - there are strongholds that need to come down. And we need the joy of faith. We need to keep our eyes on the blessings that are ours in Christ, be thankful, and rejoice that God is actively at work on his agenda for this world - and we can be a part of that.
Thank you for how you have joined with us in this endeavour this past year. Your prayer, your giving, your advice - they have all been encouragements and a true help in our work. As we enter a new year - and a new semester mid-January - let us together find the comfort and confidence of our faith by keeping our eyes on the Lord and his word, by counting our blessings, and by continuing to renew our minds, for the sake of the love and glory of God.
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