Arg
Wed, 09 May 2007 19:39:00 -0700
This is an absolutely incredible interview with Rick
Warren, "Purpose
Driven Life " author and pastor of Saddleback Church in
California .
His wife now has cancer, and he now has "wealth" from
the book
sales.
In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren,
Rick said:
People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I
respond: In a
nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last
forever,
and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is
going to
stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.
I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to
spend
trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress
rehearsal.
God wants us to practice on earth what we will do
forever in
eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure
that out,
life isn't going to make sense.
Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one
now, you're
just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another
one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in
your
character than your comfort.
God is more interested in making your life holy than
He is in
making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's
not the
goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life
but also
the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.
I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go
through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and
forth. I
don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe
that it's
kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have
something good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good things are in your life, there is
always
something bad that needs to be worked on.
And no matter how bad things are in your life, there
is always
something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your
problems.
If you focus on your problems, you're going into
self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain."
But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to
get your
focus off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of
hundreds
of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it
easy for
her.
It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has
strengthened
her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given
her a
testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the
bad of
life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is
harder. For
instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15
million
copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.
It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never
had to deal
with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for
your own ego
or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with
this money,
notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that
helped me
decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.
First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would
not change
our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
Second, about midway through last year, I stopped
taking a
salary from the church.
Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we
call The
Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care
for the
sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in
the 24
years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was
liberating
to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for
possessions?
Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt?
Bitterness?
Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my
life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my
bed and
say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know
You more
and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a
to-do
list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's
why we're
called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK
GOD. Quiet
moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment,
THANK GOD.
*This is beautiful and food for the soul. A friend
sent it to
me, I shared it with you, now pick someone you want to bless. God
loves you
and so do I, have a blessed Lord's day!
--
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not
see. - Hebrews 11:1