Plan and Purpose

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

God has a plan and a purpose for our lives. It may not always look like what we think it should be or what we desire it to be, but that doesn't mean there isn't purpose.

God dos not desire bad things for us, but we may see something as bad even thought it is for our good. For example, when in college, I was engaged to my high-school sweet heart. That came to a crashing end when he confessed he was cheating on me and had before. I thought my world had come to a crashing end. However, as I grew and matured in my relationship with Christ, I saw that it was for my good.

It was through that experience that I realized I had nothing to offer God. I realized I truly needed Him and a relationship with Him. It is what drove me to my knees and caused me to be at the end of myself and give myself fully to Christ.  It also opened up avenues for me to meet and get to know my husband.

I definitely didn't like going through the pain, and even after I gave my life to Christ, I would question His goodness in the situation, but that didn't change the fact that it was good.

Difficult times can cause us to pull away from God or run closer to Him. I suggest running to Him. Seek His peace, His strength, His love. He desires to give us an expected end!

Purpose of Life

Prayer, Patience and Purpose

My day started out nicely, but quickly turned. It seemed to be one hardship after another and all I wanted was to get back home. I finally made it home safely and sat down to read to help calm my stressful mind. As soon as I opened up my book and read the chapter title, I was reminded of my morning Bible time and it all fell into place.

I was reading about the story of Joseph this morning during my Bible time. I even wrote a journal entry about it.

[Y]e thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good. ~ Genesis 50:20

Often times when something bad happens to us we go to God and ask, "Why?" It may not be for us to know or understand the why behind it. It was many years after Joseph was sold into slavery before he knew the why behind he was sold into slavery by his brothers.

We need to rest in the knowledge that God will use it for His good and His glory. I know it isn't always easy to do, but we need to try anyway. God will bless our patience and our diligence if we just wait on Him.

Balancing It All

So I finally make it home almost two hours after I had originally planned and sat down to read. I have been reading Balancing it All: My Story of Juggling Priorities and Purpose by Candace Bure. I only had one more chapter to read and when I opened to it and read the title, When Life's Got You Stressed, I realized it was perfect timing for me to be reading this chapter today.

Of course, she reminded me that I should have stopped and prayed today when I was in the midst of the troubles. I should have stopped my worrying and fretting and just laid it at Christ's feet.

I always try to start my day in prayer and if I don't, I have found that my day doesn't go well. I also usually find myself praying throughout the day about a number of things. Why, then, did I not turn to God in prayer today? I can't answer the why, but it is something I will think of often and hopefully remind me to do so the next time troubles enter.

Candace writes in this chapter, "A day without prayer is a day wasted of an opportunity to see God's hand in my life." How true that is! While I did realize and thank God that no one was hurt in today's proceedings, and I was thankful for the one person who stopped to help, and I was thankful my husband kept his cool and didn't yell, I didn't stop to ask God to help me with my own feelings and emotions. I could have seen His hand move in a mighty way and I missed out on that blessing.

I wish I would have remembered my morning reading when the troubles first began. I wish I would have been more like Joseph and been patient and waited for God to show me how He was working in my life. Of course, now that this has occurred and came home to be reminded once again, I have a feeling that it will stick with me better. Maybe this all happened so I could see how God was taking care of me even when I forgot to go to Him. Maybe this all happened so that the next time something happens, I will go to Him and patiently await to see His purpose in my life.

Perspective of Purpose

I've read this before, but recently received it again via email and thought it was worth sharing.

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 wit h 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.