"It's what you are, not what you do"

[georgie 1]

An Interview with Rick Warren (REMEMBER HE WROTE 'PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE')

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now

having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an

absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, 'Purpose Driven

Life ' author and pastor of SaddlebackChurchin California

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

not 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.

[bienkie]

Thank you for sharing that Georgie1 - really made me think!!

[Oosie]

Thank you very much, I believe everyone of us can learn something out of those words.

Linda

[Eva]

Thanks....