An interview with Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life,
by Paul Bradshaw.
Rick Warren 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 trillion 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 got 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 you to 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,
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." __._,_.___
by Paul Bradshaw.
Rick Warren 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 trillion 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 got 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 you to 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,
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." __._,_.___
