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 al ways 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? O r 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...Goddidn'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.