Purpose Driven LIFE

I'm working in a call center for almost a year now. Things are totally different here from the previous work I had for 10 years which is being an ACADEMIC TUTOR (kinder to HS). Aside from working during the wee hours at night and sleeping during day time, my eating habits changed and my lifestyle has changed as well. But one thing never changed (TIME with the family).

Although I managed to spend a quality TIME with my family, the time I usually spend with GOD is now at stake. I now see a red flag alert in my spirituality. I've been trying to praise GOD but it's not the same enthusiasm I used to have before.

Before it's too late for me to miss God's mighty moving, I pushed myself to attend a all the Sunday Services this Nov 2006 at Crossroad 77. This time I really have to STAND and push myself to do the right THING.

I thank God for using Chris Leonen (my colleague) who reminded me of my appointment with the GREAT I AM. So, Chris and I attended the first Sunday of November.

I mentioned to my close friend in the office (Melissa Bacay) that I attended church with Chris at Crossroad 77. She was delighted to know about it and wanted to come with us too. So that 2nd Sunday of November she went with us and she was blessed too.

From then on, Melissa and I exchanged thoughts and share our burden with one another. We feel enlightened as we sung praise songs together when our shift ends.

One day, Melissa sent me an email and shared me how blessed she was about Rick Warren's life. I just want to share this email here in my blog so that bloggers may be blessed too. Here it goes........

**********************************************************************************

About Rick Warren, author. 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 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, inspite 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 - why don't you share this with others?