Rick Warren's Thoughts on Gratitude and Purpose

An email from my Zoroastrian pen pal, a lawyer in India:

Dearest All, Regardless of how religious you are, this is very true.

This is a great interview with Rick Warren. He wrote The Purpose Driven Life, A book I recommend for all to read.

[I, Barb, loved this book, too, more when I taught it than when I first read it. A close reading as though to relay the concepts to others shows the depth, brilliance and organization of Warren's teaching mind. He makes Christian, purpose-driven living seem within our grasp --which it is.]
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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 Saddleback Church in 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.

In happy moments, PRAISE GOD.
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

Greetings on this Day of Thanks ~ 2007

Often called the first Thanksgiving feast of 1621, a feast was held in celebration of the Harvest and in gratitude to God –the Pilgrims’ account is printed annually by our local city newspaper as the lead editorial

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071122/OPINION02/711220301

90 Indians and their “king” –Massasoit –were there for the celebration.
Last year, the paper included a passage about Squanto and how they considered him to be a blessing from God to them.

On the other side of the coin: The Indian massacre of 1622 (also known as the Jamestown Massacre) occurred in the Virginia Colony on Good Friday, March 22, 1622. About 347 people [1], or almost one-third of the English population of Jamestown, were killed by a coordinated series of surprise attacks of the Powhatan Confederacy under Chief Opechancanough.

From what I gleaned in a rapid reading –an Englishman had murdered an important Indian aide of this chief–and that started the conflict. Then the enmity was on between some Indian groups and the English –but a young Indian boy warned the settlers at one point of an imminent attack.

–and as with most wars and ethnic group feuds , each side was afraid of the other and seeking revenge or security by killing off the other, hoping to intimidate each other into more peaceful ways –which did happen at one point according to the account link below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Massacre_of_1622

President George Washington issued a national Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789. He wrote, “Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country…for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed…and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually…To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.”

(George was a Master of the run-on sentence!)

Today, Geo. Washington would be shocked to see all the flack the Georgia governor got from secularists for petitioning God in public prayer for rain for his parched state. I don’t know if he got it, but our state did. We got buckets yesterday–it is brightening up here today.

As for the Indians having a general feeling that all the land was theirs and that there was no room for the Europeans –no welcome for them –and the idea that the immigrants brutalized the Indians and vice versa, right off the bat –that is not the case from what I’ve googled and found today.

The Harvest feast of 1621 -a year after the Mayflower’s arrival, shows that the Indians and the Europeans were interested in one another and friendly. The Indians, did indeed help the Europeans adapt and prosper in The New World.

Now we head over to my daughter’s –7 minutes away by car–to eat traditional turkey, pumpkin desserts, mashed potatoes, green beans and corn, and apple pan dowdy –cranberry sauce –

We stuff ourselves, feasting, to celebrate our blessings –and will thank God also. My daughter will have everyone tell something they are thankful to God for –and while the adults have devotional talk, the kids will color a picture from a Thanksgiving coloring book — she has pilgrim hats for them to wear –and probably will have colorful Indian corn and gourds for decor.

May you all have a blessed day of counting your blessings! Everyone has some --whether it be good health --or good medicine --or good friends --or good family --SOMETHING! LIFE itself. I had a nose bleed last week--and was so glad for the clotting factor God built into our blood. Imagine --if there were no clotting factor, the human race would've bled to death at the first cut! Evolved without a designer God?? I don't think so!!!


"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible