Life's purpose

Paul Hogue, over at My Dogs Are Smarter, has written a nice response to my piece on suffering. (Check out the dog pic on his profile page – very funny.)

His observation that “God cares more about me–the real me: who I am in relation to who He wants to make me,” reminded me of an interview I recently read with Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life:

Life is a series of problems. Either you are in one now, you have just come 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. . .

I used to think that life was hills and valleys – you go through a dark time, then you got to the mountain top, 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.

Here’s Warren’s site. I hadn’t realized that I subscribed to the “peaks and valleys” philosophy. But I did. . . even though my actual experiences are closer to the parallel track he describes: there is always something to be thankful for.