By Rick Warren
'This is not a self-help book. It is not about finding the right career, achieving your dreams or planning your life. It is not about how to cram more activities into an overloaded schedule. Actually, it will teach you how to do less in life - by focusing on what matters most. It is about becoming what God created you to be.
How, then, do you discover the purpose you were created for? You have only two options. Your first option is speculation. This is what most people choose. They conjecture, they guess, they theorize. When people say, "I've always thought life is...," they mean, "This is the best guess I can come up with."...
Fortunately, there is an alternative to speculation about the meaning and purpose of life. It's revelation. We can turn to what God has revealed about life in his Word. The easiest way to discover the purpose of an invention is to ask the creator of it. The same is true for discovering your life's purpose: Ask God.
God has not left us in the dark to wonder and guess. He has clearly revealed his five purposes for our lives through the Bible. It's our Owner's Manual, explaining why we are alive, how life works, what to avoid, and what to expect in the future. It explains what no self-help or philosophy book could know. The Bible says, "God's wisdom...goes deep into the interior of his purposes...It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest - what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us."
God is not just the starting point of your life; he is the source of it. To discover your purpose in life you must turn to God's Word, not the world's wisdom. You must build your life on eternal truths, not pop psychology, success motivation, or inspirational stories. The Bible says, "It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone." '
'You were made by God and for God - and until you understand that, life will never make sense.' (p.18)
I strongly recommend this book as a significant and worthwhile read.
You can visit the website for the Purpose Driven Life at
www.purposedrivenlife.com