What is GFW?

GFW… what does it mean?

Well, GFW stands for God, family, and then work. Matthew and I chose this name because of the reason we started this business- to get our house in order, and to keep what is most important first in our lives. We want our personal relationships with God to come above all else, and then our family (spouse first, then kids). Everything else comes after that- work, ministry, friends, etc.

We have always known that God is supposed to come first. But we went through a difficult time realizing that working in ministry and serving in church is not the same as our personal relationship with Him. Working in ministry is not bad, but if it starts constantly coming before everything else in your life, that is when trouble can start.

Some problems we encountered that led us to this revelation:

• Being so consumed by work that we have no time to pray.
• Being at every church event, and missing family events.
• Judging how good our “relationship” with God is based on how often we are at church events and services.
• Always available for the job, church, or others, but never available for our spouse or family.
• Spending too much time working for God instead of working on getting to know Him and His word.
  
  

When ministry becomes the most important thing, it is wrong. Matthew and I were starting to feel convicted that our house was out of order and that we were not putting the first things first in our lives.

We began praying, and Matthew felt God say it’s time to quit your job in ministry and focus on what really matters. So that week, He quit with no plan except to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. We felt peace about this, even though we were entering the unknown. We knew that God would provide, even if we didn’t know how at this point.

We had to learn how to balance our lives and be intentional about putting God first, not church, and learn how to separate the two. We had to realize the importance of praying, reading the Bible, and spending time in His presence, instead of worrying if we had a title or a leadership role in church when we were barely leading our own homes and our own children.

Matthew started doing a few things working from home while keeping God and family first. He realized how much he had missed out on when he was so focused on other things, and we grew closer to God than ever before. Our marriage and family also became so much stronger.

Soon, we felt like God was revealing a bigger plan for us and why we had to go through these struggles. He started leading us to create a brand that represented what we have learned from those struggles that are now so important to us—putting Him first and remembering that our family is our first ministry. This was when GFW was established.

He was telling us to make this brand and create our own content and products to bring glory to Him. So as a family, we prayed, and we all got similar answers about what our first product should be. Matthew got to work learning, researching, and taking classes. Then we started creating, and now we finally have our first product ready to sell in a few months!

Check out our next blog, all about our first product and where God is leading our business!