Saturday, February 21, 2015

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren has sold millions of copies - it is a very popular book.  It has been recently rebranded What On Earth am I Here For?  It originally had 40 reasonably short chapters.  The new edition has 2 new chapters.  The book is formatted/written as a devotional.  I avoided this book for many years, but eventually bought it and worked through it in 40 days, journaling my thoughts about the chapter I had read that day.

The book essentially answers the question 'What am I here for?' from a Christian perspective.  Having grown up in a Christian home, and wrestled with that question most of my life (it seems), I definitely found myself challenging some of the points made in the book...  or they challenged me.

I found the book very 'matter of fact', 'this is simply the way it is', black and white, and at times (as evidenced in my journal entries) I struggled with that.  I find life much more messy, in your face, and abstract.

Getting that off my chest, this is a great book for grasping the Christian foundations of what we are all here on earth for.  In the book, Rick outlines 5 core purposes that God created us all for.  He says 'Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning.  Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.'   If you are looking for mean, significance, and hope, then this book is for you.  It will not give you definitive answers like 'the life purpose for your giftings and personality type is to move to Perth, Australia and start a ministry with the street people.'  It will give you a great foundation to consider who and what your life is about.

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