Corking the Bottle

I asked what drives your life. Rick Warren in  The Purpose-Driven Life  ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ) suggests four drivers that often distract us from what really  should  be driving our lives. Yesterday it was fear. Today: Materialism -- Some are led by a desire to acquire. So what? If I have many possessions won't that make me happy, feel important and more secure? Nope. "Possessions only provide temporary happiness. Because these things do not change, we eventually become bored with them and then want newer, bigger, better versions." Second, possessions don't make us more important. "Self-worth and net-worth are not the same." And third -- more secure? Material things can be lost by theft, flood, fire, or sometimes divorce. (You know if I'm talking to you .) "Real security can only be found in that which can never be taken from you -- your relationship with God." God is the way to sobriety!

Take a minute. What guides your life? The correct answer here is God. But all of us -- some of the time, all of the time, or part of the time -- are driven by painful, bad stuff. If you are reading this, maybe you are being driven by alcohol or other drugs. The Self-Driven Life gives us four common things that take the wheel as we drop God off at at a bus stop in Kalamazoo. This is a wonderful book, written by Rick Warren ( https://www.churchsource.com/rickwarren ), that gives me lots of oh-yea moments. Here are his top drivers. For the next five blog posts, I will write a little about each. They are: Many people are driven by guilt. Many people are driven by resentment and anger. Many people are driven by fear. Many people are driven by materialism. Many people are driven by the need for approval. I will dissect each like a frog in a high school biology class.