No Matter What, God always has our back!

This chemo trip has been....quite a treatment. I've not felt good from the very first day. I'm not going to let it get me down. I may feel bad but God still has me under his divine protection.

Three more prayer requests: Debra Coker, the wife of one of the men Steve works with did go back to the doctor. She just finished with chemo and her lungs are full of spots. They are meeting with the oncologist. They initially gave her a 50/50 chance of survival with her breast cancer and now this....please pray for her.

Corey, the 31 yr. old father of two small toddlers just found out that his entire colon must be removed. Please pray for his family as well.

Thirdly, we just got a call tonight of someone else who works with Steve and his 47 yr. old wife has Alzheimer's. He was crying and asked about our support group. So sad, it seems every corner we turn, someone we know is coming down with a life and death survival situation.

God is able to supply and meet all our needs!! None of this is too big for our God. We must pray and be ready to meet him should our time come sooner than what we expect. It is the most important thing we can do. Someone sent this e-mail to me today. It is an e-mail from Rick Warren. I thought you would enjoy it.


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 an absolutely incredible short interview
with Rick Warren,'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastorof Saddleback Church in CaliforniaIn the interview by Paul Bradshaw withRick Warren, Rick said:People ask me, What is the purpose oflife?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, butI am going to spend trillions of years in eternity.
This is thewarm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice onearth 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 makesense.
Life is a series of problems:Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, oryou're getting ready to go into another one.The reason for this is that God is moreinterested in your character than your comfort; God is moreinterested in making your life holy than He is in making yourlife happy.We can be reasonably happy here onearth, but that's not the goal of life.

The goal is to grow incharacter, in Christ likeness.This past year has been the greatestyear of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay,getting cancer.I used to think that life was hills andvalleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to themountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe thatanymore.Rather than life being hills andvalleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on arailroad track, and at all times you have something good andsomething bad in your life.No matter how good things are in yourlife, there is always something bad that needs to be workedon.And no matter how bad things are in yourlife, there is always something good you can thank Godfor..
You can focus on your purposes, or youcan focus on your problems:If you focus on your problems, you'regoing into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, mypain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to getyour focus off yourself and onto God and others.We discovered quickly that in spite ofthe prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was notgoing to heal Kay or make it easy for her-

It has been verydifficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character,given her a ministry of helping other people, given her atestimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.You have to learn to deal with both thegood and the bad of life.Actually, sometimes learning to dealwith the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of asudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made meinstantly very wealthy.It also brought a lot of notoriety thatI had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives youmoney or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life ofease..

So I began to ask God what He wanted meto do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me twodifferent passages that helped me decide what to do, IICorinthians 9 and Psalm 72.First, in spite of all the money comingin, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no majorpurchases.Second, about midway through last year,I stopped taking a salary from the church.Third, we set up foundations to fund aninitiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equipleaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate thenext generation.Fourth, I added up all that the churchhad paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and Igave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God forfree.We need to ask ourselves: Am I going tolive for possessions? Popularity?Am I going to be driven by pressures?Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven byGod's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit onthe side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything elsedone 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 moreinterested 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, SEEKGOD.Quiet moments,
WORSHIPGOD.Painful moments,
TRUSTGOD.Every moment,
THANK GOD.