Railroad Track Theory, Pictures from Horseshoe Bay, and More!

My mom sent me this today, and I LOVED it and had to share!

Rick Warren (REMEMBER HE WROTE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE) 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, 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.
NOW ... PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FRIENDS!

These are the pictures that my friend, Kimberly took at Horseshoe Bay...






Last week I was determined to take pictures since I've been bad about that lately, so I did, but there was a glich in the camera and they all got erased! :( My parents are going to loan me their camera for a little while to try again, so maybe I'll post some next week!

To fill you in on this past weekend, my brother's Christmas present to my dad was to go to a Gordon Lightfoot concert in Fort Worth this past weekend. We all got tickets as a family and went together. My family grew up listening to Gordon Lightfoot constantly (along with John Denver) on our 5000-6000 mile roadtrips we would take every summer. When Josh and I became serious, he learned to love Gordon pretty quickly! If you haven't heard of him, ask you'll parents and they'll know. All of us, minus the children, got to go, and we thoroughly enjoyed it! I would show you pictures, but they were erased! One of the highlights of the trip was getting to see one of my best friends, Suzanne, at the hospital there! Suzanne, who's pregnant with quads, and I have been friends since we were in 6th grade, and it was so good to see her doing so well! I was also blessed to meet one of my new blogger friends on a "blind" playdate last week, Kimberly, and her adorable boy Creighton! I had a great time getting to talk to her, and James enjoyed running around with a new friend (who I bet in just a few months will be running around with him). Last night, we had an in-town blogger get together that Nicki blogged about today. Check it out! It was so much fun, and if you live in town and want to go to the next one, let us know! Josh's and my 5 year anniversary is this Friday, so we're going up to Dallas, going to drop James off at my brother's work, and then I don't know what we're doing after that! Josh has planned something, and I'm excited to find out!! It is sooooo hard for him to keep a secret from me, so it's been fun giving him a hard time about it! I'll blog about it when we get back! James is awake from his nap now, so I better wrap this up! Hope everyone has a great weekend!