STORY OF THE TREE
In 2023 my wife and I were walking through our neighborhood near our home when Keturah noticed a large log on the side of the road. It was covered in dead bark, cobwebs and dirt, and placed out by the trash bin. Keturah stopped to look at it, and asked if I would bring it home. My first reaction was "What are you going to do with a log?" She stated she wasn't sure, but she wanted it. So I went home to retrieve my furniture dolly and hauled it back home.
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The next day I started taking all of the dead bark off the tree and cleaning the cobwebs and dirt off of it, and what remained was a beautiful piece of wood.
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Keturah asked me to find someone to sand it down and make it smooth, and seal it off. Then she promptly decorated it with garden gnomes and sunflowers.
In mid 2024 (I still hadn't found someone to sand the log) we invited a missionary from India to stay in our home for a short time. During his stay we cleaned any semblance of idols out of hour home, including those garden gnomes. Then the log stood empty in our garage once more.
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On Tuesday April 24th, 2025 my friend Adian asked me if I ever looked up the meaning of my name. He was studying the names of God and how they had different meanings. What I found was interesting: Keith is from a Scottish surname that was originally derived from the name of a place in East Lothian, itself possibly derived from the Celtic root *kayto- meaning "wood". This was the surname of a long line of Scottish nobles. This information would become very interesting the next morning.
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On Wednesday another brother Andrew came over to help us start the Total Money Makeover with Dave Ramsey. When the meeting was over I remembered his family owned a wood shop, so I asked him to come to the garage and showed him the log.
When he saw the log, I described what we wanted done: Sanding, sealing, and maybe add some stain.
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The top of the log was a slant to it so he asked if we wanted him to cut if off flat to make a table. Not sure, I called Keturah into the garage and asked her. She immediately replied no, we couldn't alter the shape of it. Then Andrew said it...
"Is this going to be the podium in your church?" In that moment the revelation hit me and my wife so hard, this WAS the podium of our future church that I would preach from.
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The next morning on my walk I spoke to God and asked "Ok Lord, if this tree is your pulpit, what is the name of your church?" and immediately the name The Carpenter's House came into my mind and I received it. Then I asked God to give me a bible verse, a foundation for the church, and He gave me:
Jeremiah 17:7-8
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit."
That night Keturah asked if she could talk to me about the tree, and I said of course! She heard me tell Andrew to stain the tree and she said I shouldn't stain it. For her the tree was found on the side of the road full of imperfections but she saw its beauty and brought it home. Similarly, Jesus found all of us on the side of the road, full of imperfections, saw the beauty in us and brought us home.
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This tree was given to me as a precious gift from God, that carries a very serious responsibility: To teach the truth of God's word behind it. When I counted the rings of the tree I discovered the tree was planted 26 years ago. This is same precise year my wife and I decided to move to Las Vegas! It blows me away when I think about the sovereignty of God and how His invisible hand is over all things.
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My hope is this story fills you with hope, and even more so that you visit The Carpenter's House one day and have a supernatural encounter with the mighty God of the universe that created it all.
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God bless you,
Pastor Keith