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.
