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PRAY FOR THESE URBANA SPEAKERS
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.
 Rick Warren, author of the book "The Purpose Driven Life" is also pastor of Saddleback Church in California.
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