Monday, March 23, 2009

So I think I have officially reached the neck of the bottle

I haven't blogged in a while because I have been extremly busy... Kahlai is doing better with his seizures... we are sick right now so he is having more than he has had in the past few weeks but other than that we have mainly been dealing with the side effects to the meds.

On more important news...

My poor friend Michelle is back in the hospital with her boy David for what might be his 28th surgery on his brain!! Please keep her in your prayers as they need as many prayers as possible right now. CAN YOU IMAGINE?

She also has a blog page. I'll ask her is I can share through mine.

Monday, March 2, 2009

From a Friend.. and I LOVE IT!! THANKS!

RICK WARREN (REMEMBER HE WROTE 'PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE')

also he did the debate with McCain and Obama.
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 an other 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.
God's Blessings on you today.

NOW. PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FRIENDS.