Explanation of sorts

Hey gang

I may have gone a little “Postal” on that last blog entry. Unfortunately I do believe that Man is, for the most part, arrogant, greedy and selfish. There are exceptions of course.

Jack Grove sent me an E-mail of an interview with a man known to the world as Pastor Rick Warren, Author of “A purpose driven life”. I have summarized from this article (which I will include excerpts in this posting) that the reason Man is arrogant, selfish and greedy, is because he is internally focused, which to me seems to be the natural condition of a sentient being. So the credo of Man would be “My life is about me”. Instead, as I understand Pastor Warren, Man’s life is best suited if the focus is externally, in other words, a focus on a man’s Purpose in life.

Quote PRW: “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.
What is the purpose of life? 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. 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.


I am not trying to make this a religious argument, Your beliefs are yours and these are Pastor Warrens. To me it is very reasonable and logical that whatever I focus on, it is going to manifest it’s self in my life. (ie “The Secrete”) If I focus on my pain and problems, then pain and problems are what I get, if I focus on material wealth, fame and power, this is also what I get. These are internally focused events. That’s why Man (me) is arrogant, selfish and greedy. Man is unlikely to focus on anything other than himself and his loved ones. If he does focus on God it is to see himself as a “better” person. (Internally focused)

Quote PRW: "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 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 is what Pastor Rick and Kay Warren did.

Now, this is my point with this post. How many People that you know, would have done with the money earned from the book sales, that he and his wife did? How many people in the state of Florida do you think would do what they did? The United States, the world? Would YOU do what they did?

Nada, none, zip.

There aren’t nearly enough Rick and Kay Warrens in this world to make a difference. And I am not saying that if you are so inclined that it is not worth doing. I believe it is. But I doubt that I would actually do it.

One more point. Even though I am for environmental issues and I could ride a bicycle to the grocery store do you think I will? Would you? The earth will be overrun with human beings and its ecology will be destroyed in the next few hundred years. I see no way for it to survive other than for 80% of the human population should disappear. Even that is a short term delaying tatict.

I am not trying to bum every one out. I just think that if we (the human race) do not acknowledge the reality of the situation there is absolutely no hope of doing anything about it and other than this post I don’t think I will do anything about it either. So you see, I don’t believe Man will change even in the face of annihilation.

comments? khatch46@yahoo.com

AV