In an interview by Paul Bradshaw with

Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life,

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 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 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, 2 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.