The Blessing of God

I have been thinking about the Blessing of God quite a bit lately. I would love to hear your thoughts.

As Christians, I feel like so many people are too concerned about losing the Blessing of God. We will fret/worry/pray about a situation making sure that we choose the "right" thing*. 

My question is this: does the blessing rest on the choice or does it rest on us? I would say that the blessing actually rests on us. We need to realize that God wants to bless His people, not things. Several times, I have felt that Lord has actually told me in the midst of a situation to choose, and that He will bless me no matter what decision I make. 


Let's take a look at the Aaronic Benediction in Numbers 6:22-27. This is the blessing that the Lord commanded Aaron to speak over the children on Israel.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: "Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, 'This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them:

"The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace."'"

"So they shall put My name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them."

I love what the benediction states. We are the object of each part of the blessing. God is the one that is performing the action in each phrase listed above. So therefore, I challenge you to trust the Lord and live in His blessing!



*One small caveat: obviously, I am talking about two good choices, as opposed to one right and one wrong choice. Just look at Deuteronomy 11:26-29. God set before the children of Israel both a blessing and a curse. If you follow the commandments of the Lord, there will be a blessing, and if not, there will be a curse.

Guatemala bound

As many of you know, Garrett is heading to Guatemala tomorrow. He will be joining a Gateway Church team that is working with one of RU4Children's key partners. The team will be visiting schools in the Chimaltenango area and they will also be installing stoves in several homes. Almost all Mayan families cook inside their home on an open fire with no ventilation. Many children, along with adults, suffer from Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI) as well as danger from exposure to the open flames. We want to replace this cooking method with an enclosed stove, including a chimney to vent the smoke outside the home, making the environment much safer for the children and adults. The stoves will be much more efficient for the families as well.

Will you all please pray for both of us while Garrett is away? Samantha unfortunately cannot go on this trip due to school commitments. Garrett will try his best to post photos to Facebook and hopefully even post a blog while he is in Guatemala. We look forward to sharing with you all about the trip once Garrett returns.

A house update...

Everyone, we just wanted to take a minute and update you on our house. We met with our construction superintendent today and everything is going great. It looks like everything is right on schedule. By the end of next week, we should hopefully have sheetrock up and brick on the outside. Here are a few photos we wanted to share.

Our house

The view out of our front door

Andy, our fearless construction superintendent

Ready to brick any day now

Our bathroom water pipes

Standing in the dining room looking at the Living room

Entering the front door, looking towards the kitchen

Garrett hamming it up outside of the History Maker office

Our garage

Our back patio

The window above our (future) kitchen sink

The hallway from the 2nd bedroom towards our living room