Hello everyone and welcome to the Graceology with Gwen Smith podcast. I'm Gwen Smith and I'm so glad you've joined me today.

Around here we have fun, faith-focused, grace-filled conversations, all to help you know and trust God more.

Our discussions are honest, often humorous, and always practical.

And they're going to encourage you in meaningful ways to live out and lean on the grace of Jesus

in the midst of cluttered messy days.

You got any of those?

I know I do, and I can't wait to get to today's conversation, which is all about discovering

the habits of highly blessed people.

Yeah, you heard that right.

My guest today is Pastor Mark Batterson, who, in addition to being the founder and lead

pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C., is a New York Times best-selling author of books

like The Circlemaker, Chase the Lion, and Whisper. In his latest book, Double Blessing, Mark

encourages readers to make gratitude and generosity their lifestyle. He believes the key to radically

increasing your faith, joy, and abundance

can be found in these three little words, Flip the Blessing. Listen, we all have challenges

and brokenness, and sometimes the trials in our lives can keep us from seeing the ways that God

is at work in us and opportunities for him to be at work

through us. We often ask God to change those circumstances that are actually meant to change

us. In today's episode, Mark and I talk about what the Bible has to say about the history

and the mystery of God's blessings, which are not always easy to qualify or quantify.

And I'm confident you're gonna be both challenged

and changed by the powerful stories

...