10 Days of PDL

As you know, I've been extremely busy working on the 40 Days of Purpose campaign at church. Part of being committed to this campaign is faithfully reading a chapter a day. The book (The Purpose Drive Life) is full of tidbits (and chunks :) ). Thought I'd share some with you.

Ch. 1 - It All Starts with God

"It's not about you."
"You must begin with God, your creator. You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God -- and until you understand that, life will never make sense."

Ch. 2 - You Are Not an Accident

"He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death."
"God made you so he could love you."

Ch. 3 - What Drives Your Life?

"Real security can only be found in that which can never be taken from you --- your relationship with God."

Ch. 4 - Made to Last Forever

"When you live in light of eternity, your values change."

Ch. 5 - Seeing Life from God's View

"When you understand that life is a test, you realize that nothing is insignificant in your life."

Ch. 6 - Life is a Temporary Assignment

"In order to keep us from becoming too attached to earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life - longings that will never be fulfilled this side of eternity."
"Your time on earth is not the complete story of your life. You must wait for heaven for the rest of the chapters."

Ch. 7 - The Reason for Everything

"God didn't give you your abilities for selfish purposes. They were given to benefit others, just as others were given abilities for your benefit."

Bear with me . . . three more chapters to go. . .

Ch. 8 - Planned for God's Pleasure

"Work becomes worship when you dedicate it to God and perform it with an awareness of his presence."

Ch. 9 - What Makes God Smile

"God made you to love you, and he longs for you to love him back."
"Trusting God completely means having faith that he knows what is best for your life."

Ch. 10 - The Heart of Worship

"God wants your life -- all of it. Ninety-five percent isn't enough."
"Don't be afraid; nothing under his control can ever be out of control. Mastered by Christ, you can handle anything."

I don't share this with you so that you won't read the book. :) I still highly recommend it. It was difficult for me to just pick one or two statements from each chapter. I hope at least one or two them spoke to you too. . .

Quotes taken from The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

Dumb duck!

For some reason today, I was reminded of a story that my mom and I were a part of eight years ago this summer. It's a pretty good story so I thought I would share it with you. Some of you may remember this, but anyway, here it goes. . .

It was a summer evening in June of 2000. I was shopping for a dress to wear to my friend Amy's wedding that was coming up on July 7. Mom graciously agreed to help in the search for the perfect dress. I don't remember how many stores we hit, but our last stop of the night was to Centerpointe Mall. Was it Centerpointe or Eastbrook back in 2000? I can't remember. As I drove across the parking lot we see a mother duck leading her baby ducks (probably about 5 or 6 of them) right across the parking lot! Mom and I commented on how dumb this mother duck was to lead her babies in the path of danger.

So we go into Steketee's (another blast from the past). The selection of dresses was poor so we were only in there for about 10 minutes. We climb in the car to head home.

As we were driving out of the parking lot we see the mother duck standing by the curb just quacking away. And then we saw it. A drain, at the edge of the curb. I stopped the car and we get out. There are all the baby ducks swimming in the drain. They had fallen through because their not so bright mother let them right over the grates. My mom and I are like-minded (for the most part :) ) and we knew we couldn't just leave those ducks there.

Mom said, "Do you have anything in the trunk that we could use to get them out?"

I opened the trunk. The only thing there was a set of golf clubs. Now I hate to admit it, but we thought maybe my driver would work. I'm not sure how we thought that would ever work. Were the baby ducks just supposed to hop on and let us lift them out? Yeah, sure.

By now, this couple stopped to "help". The man was obviously slightly inebriated. We all tried to think about what to do. One of us noticed Dunham's across the parking lot, so I headed over there to buy a net, while my mom, the lady, and the lush all protected the ducklings. Meanwhile the mother duck is still quacking like crazy.

I bought the net at Dunham's. I did ask if I could just borrow it, but after explaining the situation they said I had to buy it. Anyway I went back and we got all the baby ducks out. They went waddling away behind their mom. Across the parking lot again. In attempting to replace the grate on top the drain the drunk man dropped it in! They assured us they would let someone know. . .right. The ducks weren't done being rescued that night because now their mom was going to lead them across Lake Eastbrook Blvd. Mom and the lady went and stopped traffic. The ducks safely cross and we go on our way.

We didn't find the perfect dress but we saved some (duck) lives. Somewhere there are hopefully some grown up ducks who are better mothers than their mother.