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 a facinating 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 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.
...long ago our ancestors knew a fundamental truth that we are only recently rediscovering: good mental health is inextricably intertwined with deep spiritual development. Transpersonal psychologists in the past several decades have produced good science that shows that people who have strong spiritual beliefs and practices are generally more resilient in the face of life crises, and tend to have an easier time recovering from some physical illnesses.
This should not be surprising. After all, the psyche — a Greek word for soul — which has come to be used for the mind or one's consciousness in modern times, is inescapably spiritual in its core nature. And so are we. This does not mean that we must return to church or temple, or become ultra religious to fulfil the promise of deep spirituality as a safeguard for mental and physical health. Let's not confuse religious belief and observance with spiritual development, which is about cultivating awareness, empathy and wisdom, being of service, and having tolerance and integrity — all virtues that can and should apply no matter what religious framework one believes in. Healing emotions often involves developing one's spirituality.
These healing and development efforts in education and therapy are about raising consciousness in order to support transformation in the learner or client. Transformation is more than just change. It occurs at such a deep level that we are truly different beings when we undergo transformation. Transformative change is essential for all of us in order to become better people, able to make a beneficial difference in the world and in our own lives. No matter where you are in your personal spiritual journey, or mental health status, it is useful to ponder these five transformative questions.
In the way you are living your life, how are you being the medicine? In teaching naturopathic medical students, the relevance of that question is obvious. But if we think about medicine as energetic spiritual power, as the First Peoples of America did and do, I think this question applies to all of us on the path of transformational consciousness. Being the medicine is about how you are living your life in such a way as to be respectfully and appropriately using the spiritual power that is innate within you. What can you further develop in order to be the medicine more fully?
What do you trust? Notice I didn't ask who. This question is asking: in what do you place your belief that all is and will be as it should be? It's always interesting to try to take this question down as deep as one can with as much honesty as one can stand. In your everyday life, are you acting in congruence with what you say you trust? If not, what needs to be surrendered, reframed, or healed in order to be in alignment with what you say you trust? What cause will you give your life?
The answer to this question is often very telling as to how congruent we are with our espoused and lived values. What we prioritise in thoughts, words, and deeds on a daily basis is what we are giving our life energy to. Many of us say we value our families, but then we work 16 hours a day, rarely eat a meal together, and put business success above interpersonal family relationships. Doing this is giving life energy to work, to stress, to something other than the family that is supposedly valued. What we're actually doing is not congruent with what we're saying we give our life to. Philosophers might say that happiness comes from not waiting until circumstances force you to choose between the cause for which you would give your life, and the life you live everyday. Are you really living a life of purpose and meaning now, and if not, what needs to change?
What you put your attention on grows. Are you growing what you want to be growing? If not, how does your attention need to shift? It really means something spiritually profound and psychologically healthy to be able to say you walk your talk. Can you say that with full integrity? If not, look at how you need to re-prioritise your choices.
At the end of your life, what will you have dared so that you can pass on with no regrets?
Daring to take risks is one of the most essential transformative energies that I know of for both spiritual development and mental health. In fact many mental health and relationship problems start from a fear of risking being fully seen as our authentic selves, fear of asserting our whole truth, fear of risking rejection and abandonment by those we love, fear of risking pride or security, and other large and small risks. Daring is a catalyst for becoming everything we are meant to be.
SOLACE: Wisdom of the Dying grew from Camille Adair's intimate experiences with people facing the end of their lives. As a hospice nurse, Camille has worked closely with patients, families, hospitals, cancer treatment centers and many health care professionals to address the needs of dying people as well as the needs of the health care community in being able to integrate the end of ones life as a natural and sacred human process rather than as a medical failure. www.solacethemovie.com
Why do we regard watching pornography as sinful and watching a murder action trailer as morally neutral?
I think your question is pretty subjective. I was brought up to think of pornography as sinful. Maybe you were, too. But, obviously, not everyone feels the same these days. Pornography is an industry, and is one of the largest and most profitable in the world. There's no shortage of it, but we do, as a society, seem to keep it under wraps more than we do violence, which is also pervasive - especially in entertainment. We are a violent species, just beginning to discover that we may be able to create peace. And yet we are seem to be still in love with war and killing, unfortunately, and seem to be less in love with one another.
Pornography is natural love taken to a licentious extreme, and violence is the extreme of human conflict. Neither one is desirable or uplifting, in my opinion. As for sinfulness, that may be a matter between the individual and God, although it is hard to imagine that either of these extremes would be pleasing to our loving Heavenly Father.
It may be that there is less a sense of "sinfulness" about many things in our society than there once was. There is a coarseness about much of our entertainment, and both of these extremes bleed into each other. Violence in film is but a reflection of our society, and pornography is simple license in my opinion - pornographers take advantage of weak-minded people who see no reason to control themselves. As well, pornography can be seen as a type of violence against women.
This is precisely the reason that spiritual values are so very important. An eternal spiritual perspective, and the knowledge that one is part of a Universe family and is loved dearly as an individual would fill so many needs that we have which are now satisfied only by increasing violence and more intense stimulation of the physical senses.
Thanks for this question. I hope this reply has been helpful to you.
Drugs, Chemicals, Alcohol - And Their Effects On Spirituality
Q: What is the role of mind altering drugs, chemicals, alcohol and its effect on the body and spirituality?
A: That's a very good question worthy of consideration. Let's begin in this manner: some people abstain from all drugs, alcohol, and chemicals. Others will use any one or a combination of the 3 infrequently and sparingly. Still others indulge and yet others destroy their own lives and the lives of those close to them with these same substances. Ask anyone and they'll justify their abstinence or level of use, at least justify them within in their own minds. The main difference seems to be that most (or all that I am aware of) truly spiritually perceptive people are either abstainers or infrequent and frugal users, so the use-to-enlightenment curve appears to be logarithmic. An indiscriminate use at one time or another may have no long-term effects; it all depends upon how much risk one is willing to choose to indulge in.
Here are two passages from The Urantia Book that provide some insight into an answer to this question:
"Lack of spiritual capacity makes it very difficult to transmit to such a material intellect the spiritual truths resident in the higher superconsciousness. It is to the mind of perfect poise, housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced chemical function — when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in triune harmony of development — that a maximum of light and truth can be imparted with a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such a being. By such a balanced growth does man ascend the circles of planetary progression one by one, from the seventh to the first."
"Mortal mind is a temporary intellect system loaned to human beings for use during a material lifetime, and as they use this mind, they are either accepting or rejecting the potential of eternal existence. Mind is about all you have of universe reality that is subject to your will, and the soul — the morontia self — will faithfully portray the harvest of the temporal decisions which the mortal self is making. Human consciousness rests gently upon the electro-chemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia energy system above. Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever completely conscious in his mortal life; therefore must he work in mind, of which he is conscious. And it is not so much what mind comprehends as what mind desires to comprehend that insures survival; it is not so much what mind is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit identification. It is not so much that man is conscious of God as that man yearns for God that results in universe ascension. What you are today is not so important as what you are becoming day by day and in eternity."
These and other passages should help us realize that the connection between our minds and our soul and spiritual reality are very tenuous under the best of circumstances. With us even the best of circumstances aren't particularly good to begin with — our biological makeup is sub-par, our hereditary endowments are lacking, our family life as we grow and mature is often a shambles, society surrounding us exudes destructive and negative influences. Add to that what appears to be a predisposition toward ingesting mind and consciousness altering substances and one could begin to wonder why we were even chosen to receive the gift of this revelation; most of us give its messages and warnings little heed, preferring instead to follow our whims of predisposition.
The experimentation with and use of consciousness altering substances is a pervasive, and for the most part accepted, part of society. Many Urantians discovered the book during "the drug daze" that have transpired since the 1960s and many of them continue to feed their habits, justifying them within their own minds and exhibiting by example that they're willing to settle for less than the best in their spiritual discoveries here on earth. Both of what are considered to be benign substances, tobacco and marijuana, produce observable physical alterations to cell structure; it follows to reason that they influence the delicate body-mind connection as well.
"Always should the domains of the physical (electrochemical) and the mental response to environmental stimuli be differentiated, and in turn must they all be recognized as phenomena apart from spiritual activities. The domains of physical, mental, and spiritual gravity are distinct realms of cosmic reality, notwithstanding their intimate interrelations."
One of the differences that separate human beings from animals is that human beings can learn through observation and analysis; they don't have to have an experience in order to understand and learn. In the area of mind altering substances and the effects they have on the lives we live here in the material world most of us don't function as particularly high order human beings. We should be able to conclude without actually having the experience that the role of mind altering drugs, chemicals, alcohol and their effects on the body and on spirituality have so little to offer of any real value, so little that the risk is too great to be considered an appealing enticement.
Thank you for your question. May I also recommend that if you're not already signed up that you consider subscribing to the Quote of the Day. It's a free service from our site that offers a daily quote from the incomparable teachings of this marvelous book with an audio clip and a beautiful and inspiring image, a great way to start one's day as well as to begin to understand the teachings of the book. To subscribe click on the Quote of the Day link on the left side of our home page and follow the instructions.
Xerpi
