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Family and Life
submitted
by Janice Clark
from an interview
conducted by Paul Bradshaw
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 getting 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 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 tthat in spite of the prayers of hundreds of
thousands of people, God was not going to heal my wife 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 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
has since sold over 30 million--ed.), it made me instantly very
wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I 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 asked 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 fulfull 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.
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