By my unofficial, and highly unscientific estimation the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren is a hugely popular book. I believe the exact number of people who have read it is, a lot.
But not me. I avoided it.
I saw how many people have read it, and I’ve heard people talk about it so often I thought it would be best to steer clear. Don’t ask why, it doesn’t really make any sense to me either. But all that came to an end when I found a copy for $4 at a used book sale.
What I read makes me understand why it’s such a popular book. Purpose Driven Life sets you on a 40 day journey to better understand yourself, and you’re relationship with God. While I disagree with some of the first few chapters, I was blown away by two major themes I saw in this book:
1. We are all called to change the world, even if that’s only one person or one city. God expects great things from us. Not because he’s a task master or over bearing, but because he knows just how amazing we can be. No one knows our potential like God. He also knows exactly what we can handle. And because of that he has big plans for us.
2. We should focus on the eternal. No one denies that life gets busy and hectic. It’s easy to misplace our priorities and start chasing after things that don’t matter. Sometimes we even intentionally choose to go after a career or family instead of God. While a lot of the things we emphasize in our life are good, they all fall short of the importance of how we spend eternity.
Purpose Driven Life really highlighted the fact that living with the future in mind changes how you see the present. If the only thing we’re living for is a new job, a new car, or the perfect family we will be devastated when we don’t get promoted, can’t afford an upgrade, or our family has problems.
When you live your life thinking about the impact you can make for all time, a lot of our fears seem pretty insignificant. After all, what’s a little criticism or rejection when you can impact someone forever?
God created us for a reason, and while we can certainly go through life without living out our purpose, it seems like we’d be missing out on something.
Just because life is short, doesn’t mean we can’t change eternity. And I find that exciting.
