Sometimes it's best to not say anything at all.

I just finished reading this great little article at Heartlight.com. You might want to check it out:

Keep Your Mouth Shut

Although this article talks about thinking before we speak to each other, I couldn't help thinking about the way we sometimes talk to God. So often we go to him with all of our problems, begging him to do something that will change the situation. Don't get me wrong: he wants us to come to him with everything that is on our hearts. But I believe that it is also important for us to listen to him.

What was that, Eric? Did you say listen to God?

Yes. God speaks to us in many different ways. Sometimes its through his word. Sometimes its through his Spirit. Sometimes he speaks to us through the words and actions of another person. Regardless of how he does it, God is always speaking to us in some way. When we learn to be silent and just listen to him, we will find peace. We will find comfort. We will find refuge.

SOLI DEO GLORIA! (To God Alone be the Glory!)

--Eric G.

If it ain't broke...

As you can see, I've made a few changes to this page, along with a few to my Official Website. I hope you like the new colors on this page, because I will not change them again! Let me explain...

You may have noticed that most of my posts appear on this site on Fridays. The reason for this is simple: Fridays are the days at my place of employment when I have the least amount of work to do, and the most access to the computer. On a usual Friday, I get finished up with my work for the week by noon, so I have a little time in the afternoon to check email, update my website, or post my thoughts here. With 2 small children at home, I have trouble getting to the computer until late at night (like right now, while I'm typing this), so I'm thankful for any spare time I can get during the day to catch up on all my computer stuff.

Anyway, as is my practice, today I decided I would work a little on my website, which I did, finally getting some new pictures up of my girls. Once this was done, I thought I'd check out a few blogs and maybe work a little bit on this one. After looking at several other blogs, then my own, I realized that I just didn't like the way mine looked. I felt like everyone else's blogs looked so much better than mine. I've never really liked the color scheme of my blog so I decided that a different template would work out nicely.

You know, I sure do wish I had paid attention to the fact that when you switch templates on a blog, any alterations you made to that blog's structure (like links, comments, etc.) get deleted! All of the sudden, without realizing what I had done, I was looking at my blog with no links, no reader comments, and smaller headlines for all of my entries. I couldn't believe it! What have I done?!?!

Thankfully, I was able to get things back under control, but it took a LOT of typing in code before I had the links back the way I wanted them. Now everything is back to normal, except for the new color scheme, which I really like.

I guess the moral of this story is this: When everything is going great, don't try to change it. Or, to coin an old phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" More importantly, to put this in a spiritual perspective, I learned today what can happen when I start focusing on what everyone else is doing instead of what I'm doing. Did you notice that it was only after I looked at everyone else's blogs that I decided to change mine? In my effort to "keep up with the Joneses", I lost my focus and ended up making everything worse.

I'm so glad that God isn't like that, aren't you? He doesn't compare us to each other. He just loves us for who we are, regardless of our "color schemes"! And even after we mess everything up (like I did today), he picks us up, dusts us off, and points us in the right direction. What an amazing God we have!

I just thought this was worth sharing. What started out as a simple cosmetic change to a webpage turned into a lesson about God's grace. Go figure.

By the way, for you fellow bloggers who are reading this: NICE BLOG! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Enjoy the new colors!
--Eric G.

Welcome to Baron Goins!

Once again, another friend has joined the "Blog" fray: Baron Goins! Baron is my oldest friend (I don't mean that he's the OLDEST person I know who happens to be my friend, but that I've known him longer than everybody else...including my wife! I'm actually older than he is!) and so he probably knows more secrets about me than any of my other friends, which is scary considering he now has a blog!

Seriously, Baron has a lot of great things to say, and he's one of the most spiritual people I've ever met (not that you can tell that from his first post! two words: bathroom humor). You will benefit greatly from his perspective on life!

Baron's Blog

Enjoy!
--Eric G.

I Don't know why I didn't do this sooner...

I don't know why I haven't done this already, but if you'll scroll down to the bottom of my links list, you'll find an online Bible search engine. Now, thanks to Bible Gateway, you can look up scriptures right here from this page. This might come in handy for when you read something in one of my posts and want to investigate further. Happy surfing!

--Eric G.

Happy Anniversery to Me (well...and Meloney, too)!

As you can see by the headline, Meloney and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversery today (Actually, it was yesterday, seeing as how I'm typing this at 1:15 am). It's weird to think about-- 9 years! In this day and age, that's a lifetime!

God has truly blessed me with a wonderful wife and 2 beautiful children over the past 9 years, and I think he's just getting started. You know, 9 years ago I had no idea what God had in store for my life or for my marriage, and now I see that he had plenty of plans for me. What an awesome God we serve! Pardon me while I thank him...

Father God,

I praise you for the past 9 years, and I thank you for the way you have blessed my life when I didn't deserve any of it. I thank you for the Godly woman that I married, and for her servant's heart. I pray that you will make my heart as pure and as selfless as hers. You are truly incredible in the way you know what's best for us when we can't see it. I praise you for looking past our weaknesses and our faults, and seeing us as your children. All Glory and Honor and Praise be to you!

Thanks for listening,
AMEN

Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I'll go get some sleep.

--Eric G.

Back in the Studio

Well, this week I finally began my new CD in earnest. This month is 3 years since the release of Refuge, my first solo CD, so its about time for something new. One good thing about this lapse of time is I've got plenty of new material for the studio. God has blessed me with probably around 50-60 ideas. Some of these are completed songs, others are just ideas, but all have potential. The past couple of days, I've been programming sequences like a madman. Hopefully, I can start recording some basic tracks next week. Be sure to keep me in your prayers!

By the way, on a completely different subject, be sure to check out Jon Owen's Blog for a great report from him on his mission trip to the Czech Republic.

SOLI DEO GLORIA! (To God Alone be the Glory!)

--Eric G.

A View from the 2nd Storey Window

Although it's been online for a couple of weeks, I'm just now getting around to adding this new blog to my links list. My old pal, Travis Stanley is now posting at a blog put together by fellow graduate seminary students called 2nd Storey Window. For those of you who are somewhat simple like me, some of the stuff on this site is pretty deep, but there's plenty here to enrich your life. Check it out!

2nd Storey Window