Purpose Driven Life

I got this from email, and i find it very inspiring:

This is an absolutely incredible interview with Rick Warren, author of "Purpose Driven Life."

His wife now has cancer, and he now has "wealth" from the book sales. 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 any more. 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 a foundation to fund an initiative that 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."

If only...

If Only.... an apt title for my blog entry today.

If only we can always protect our kids from life's disappointments
If only we can make life perfect for them
If only we can cushion the impact of life's frustrations
If only we can make life easy for them
If only we can make their young minds understand that frustrations are part of life

If only we can make their tears stop just by talking to them in our soothing voice
If only we can be with them whenever things are not going right, never leaving their side

But then... we can only do so much...

But we can never go wrong...

in praying for them
in reassuring them
in believing in them
in uplifting them
in loving them unconditionally

These words came straight from my heart...


Faye made it to the Championship round of her school's Battle of the Brains for Spelling. She was really excited and hopeful. She prayed a lot and even made a wish to her Tooth Fairy (she lost her front tooth the night before the contest). The problem with a Spelling contest is, you cannot review your child because you wouldn't know which words will be used in the contest, an advantage would be if your child is a wide-reader.

And then, the day of the competition came. It was tough! The words that were given were difficult (even in the Easy round!). For example, where can 7 year olds encounter the words melee, toupee, trounce? She didn't win. When she went down from the stage, she went straight to me, I hugged her, and I felt that she was going to cry, she was just trying to control it. And when I tried to soothe her, her eyes welled up with tears. Her teacher also talked to her and reassured her that everything will be alright. After a few minutes, she went back to her classmates, but she was still sad. My heart was torn, I was very hesitant to leave her, but I knew that at that moment, the best thing that I could do was to pray for her.

If only I could always promise her that life will always turn out to be what she is hoping for... but I knew that God wouldn't be pleased with that.

I have to slowly let her realize that in her young life, things will not always turn out to be alright...

Our Jack

We have African Lovebirds, Fruittie (left) and Jack (right). Actually they had partners before, Tuttie and Jill, but unfortunately, Tuttie died while Jill "escaped" from their cage.

So now, we were left with Fruittie and Jack.

They had an egg last year, but it didn't hatch. It just disappeared. Then suddenly, an egg again appeared inside their little house. We were again very excited.

Suddenly, last 7 February, they had another egg. All the while, we thought Jack was the male, and Fruittie was the female, but we were wrong.

Unfortunately, this time, when Jack had another egg, she had a difficult time -- parang hindi yata nya nakayanan! She died! Oh my goodness! Faye and I were in Tagaytay that time during her educational field trip, when i got an urgent text message from Izah. She was crying because she said Jack couldn't stand, couldn't fly. I had a difficult time pacifying her. She was really very much worried about Jack. That was also what happened when Tuttie got sick, she and Faye also cried.

The reason for their attachment to the birds was because we had them while they were still babies, we hand-fed them, giving them Cerelac through syringe. That's why the kids are so attached to them.

But now, Jack is gone... we were worried that Fruittie might get sad, but so far, he's OK, and he still has the two eggs left by Jack.

A Reason to Rejoice

Last February 2-3, we had a wonderful opportunity to attend the Joy Weekend Conference in Cap John Hay in Baguio for the CFC-FFL, although even at the last minute we were so undecided whether we will attend or not because of the expenses that we know we will incur. I was also hesitant because my blood pressure has been unstable for the past two weeks and I was scared to go on a long travel. But, God's calling prevailed. We knew that the learnings and the experience that we will have will far outweigh whatever financial considerations or worries that we were thinking of. And true enough, it was all worth it.


The talk given by Bro. Frank Padilla was tremendously uplifting: A Reason to Rejoice.

Bro. Frank said that these are enough reasons for us to rejoice:

(1) Our God is Joy. There was pain and persecution but God has prepared us because He has brought us to the Book of Lamentations. He did this because He loves us, He doesn't want us to veer away from Him.

(2) We face a new beginning, and we face a great life with the Lord.

(3) In Lamentations, God had wanted to teach us a lot of things, but now He has brought us to the book of Zephaniah. This book has a ray of hope, it is about God's love for us. This book is good news, which again is enough reason for us to rejoice.

(4) God is faithful even if we are unfaithful.

(5) Lamentation is a journey of hope and joy. We are returning to God.

(6) Our Lord Jesus Christ is purifying us, then He will anoint us. If we are restored to God's original intent, He will empower us.

(7) We rejoice because God is beginning to rejoice in us, through this community.

Some thoughts to ponder on:

• In order to endure all the trials that are coming our way, we should all turn back to God.
• God's grace is never exhausted. Our God is a faithful God.
• Even in the midst of difficulties, we should all the more, cling to God.
• Life is full of tears, it is only when we realize God's love, that we will have a fulfilled life.
• We cannot say that we love God, and yet we continue to sin.

We were also asked to write down our personal reflection for the messages that we received:

(1) Given the message of the theme of Zephania, what is it telling you personally?

It's giving me hope that after so many trials that are coming my way, all I really need to do is to rely on God. God gives these trials to purify me because He wants to transform me.

(2) How does it affect your present personal situation?

There have been a lot of problems with me personally and within my family. But, I was assured of hope when I learned of the message from the book of Zephaniah. God needs to do all these things in order to purify me. He wants me to be strong. He wants me to just cling to Him during trials, never wavering in my faith in Him.

Having joined CFC-FFL has renewed my faith and being a part of a growing community offers absolute promise from our God who is forever faithful. We still have a long way to go in terms of being faithful to our covenant, but now we know that we are on the right direction, with God being with us all the way.

It wasn't easy in the beginning because we were uprooted from our comfort zone, being with the people that we considered as second family since 2001. We still consider them as such, and we know in our hearts that they also feel the same way towards us.

It was a big decision on our part but we knew we made the right choice.

It wasn't long before we slowly blended with our new group, and our prayer meetings have been truly inspiring and insightful.

We've gained not only new friends, but new brothers and sisters in Christ.

GOD BLESS US ALL!

How sweet....

I was once again complaining about my weight... which Faye heard. I was saying, "Hay naku Faye, ang taba talaga ni Mommy kaya I really need to lose weight". She said, "Mommy, OK lang yun, mas marami pa ngang mas mataba kesa sa yo". One time, she also commented, "Mommy hindi ka mataba, maganda nga yan kasi healthy ka diba?" Isn't she sweet???