Personally, this was much more than a book that I've mark off as read, even though finishing another always feels like a grand achievement. Rather, it defines to term "spiritual journey," and I feel incredibly thankful for this buddy read; for my lovely wife, Tanya, for lending me her copy; and to Rick Warren for writing it. Most of all, I'll forever be grateful to God, for setting ALL of it into motion, so that millions around the world may reap the benefits.

I'm proud of myself for completing this journey. Some of the lessons certainly weren't easy to face (nor should they be,) because they were questions I'd been running away from for a very long time; years, actually. However, the road ahead, knowing what I know about the Christian lifestyle, is quite daunting and though I believe in my heart and mind that God never gives us more than we can handle (as long as we lean on Him and let Him intervene,) I'm not so sure I'm up the tasks ahead.

I'm scared of continually screwing up, and ashamed for running from God all these years. He must be really disappointed in me. That's how I feel. I am sad, my heart is heavy with regret and shame. I feel like crying, but the tears rarely come any more. It's like I'm tapped out.

EDIT (2021): Wrote this back in 09', at the peak of my goofy and hyperbolic New Atheist phase.

This is a disgusting book. The goal of this book is to make you a slave. Don't take my word for it I'll just read straight from the book: "Worship isn't for you. It's for God p.66, God smiles when we obey him wholeheartedly, You have no right to argue with your Creator. You are merely a clay pot shaped by a potter p.75 " Or the chapters titles "Thinking like a Servant " and "How Real Servants Act".

For me, the most revolting thing about the book came on p.80 and this theme was repeated throughout the book "Surrendered people obey God's word even if it doesn't make sense." A few sentences before that Warren says "God would not waste the mind he gave you. God doesn't want a lot of mindless robots following him." Anyone who doesn't see the clear contradiction between those two sentences is a fool. And Warren put them on the same page.

Warren says it over and over and over again, the purpose of life isn't to learn, or to teach or even to just enjoy life, but to OBEY God. It doesn't matter what your own thoughts are or what you think of yourself, it only matters what the Great Self Appointed Tyrant in the Sky thinks of you and your life. According to this book, your only goal in life is to be forever groveling and praising this God and doing your damnedest to get others to do likewise.

There are some decent lessons in the book but all of them are corrupted by the awful dogma of Warren and his twisted theology. The book is designed to get around your intellect, it even says at some points that thinking and doubting are bad things, and go straight for your weakness and insecurities with an open attempt to try and convince you that you and everything you value are worthless without the Dictator's permission. Only a fool, only someone who WANTS TO BE A SLAVE would get anything out of this book.

On one hand, Rick Warren comes across as wanting to be someone who brings people together. On the other, he is the pastor of one of the largest right-wing mega-churches in the country. In this book, he brings the softer side to bear, urging people to find their place in God's plan.

I guess that I am on the wrong side of the political spectrum to endorse this book, even though I am an active member of a church. The only reason I read this book was because it figured in a trial I was working on. I think that Warren is a likable guy, but his brand of Christianity is not for me.

A book I would want everyone to read.

Rick Warren's books are read as part of small groups in churches of almost every denomination. I'm glad this book seems to have positively affected so many people, but to me, it seemed somewhat typical of the simplified, talk-down-to-you, kill-the-mystery, commercialized Christian devotional. I'm still waiting for the Purpose Driven board game and the Purpose Driven action figures.

We read this in a weekly meeting at church and I was impressed with this book's simple wisdom. One can read the words easily, but taking them to heart is a different matter.
I can recall reading a handful of books in my life, only a few which were theological in nature, where I got to a certain point and I had to stop, simply because I couldn't go any farther: I could not get my head...or heart... around such a concept as was being presented and I felt that pushing through or on would have been a waste of time. I still feeel that way about really good books.
The first time I read this book, I pushed through without bringing myself to some of those hard decisions, things which would change the way I did things, should I do them. In a sense I had to push onward: there wasn't any time to stop and tell myself that I was unwilling to do something important for my relationship with God. This time I am not stopping and that makes it all the more beautiful.

boo. I hate this book

This book teaches its reader God's five purposes for his or her life on earth: He makes you a member of His family, a model of His character, a magnifier of His glory, a minister of His grace, and a messenger of His Good News to others.

Among those five purposes, at this stage in my life, the only engaging read for me was the first one. There was nothing new about it really as I basically studied at several Catholic universities during my younger years. However, there were some bible passages and pointers that Warren reminded me of and the book had the usual positive impact to me so I still liked it. It's just that pages after pages of it sounded like some of the religion teachers that I had in the past. Maybe when I am in the twilight years, I will read this book again and its the impact will be greater than it has on me now.

There are also many quotable quotes that were able to inspire me there past few weeks. The book is designed to be read one chapter a day for the reader to "digest" and ponder the point that the chapter wants to convey. I recently had a couple of misunderstandings with someone close to me and this book became my companion in threshing out what could be done to fix things. Warren actually helped me in seeing things at that someone's points of view so saying sorry, forgetting and granting forgiveness were not really that difficult.

We have three copies of this book at home. The first was a Christmas gift from an office mate. The second was a retirement gift to my wife by another office mate. The third was the book my daughter bought for herself. I am not sure which one I read but since this book was first published in 2002, it has sold 25 million copies worldwide. I was in a bookstore last week and the latest copy proudly bears 30 million mark. Why did I not read this right away say when we received the first copy of the book at home? I dunno. Just browsing the book gave me then an impression that it was saccharine sweet and was unrealistically all positive that means falsely deceptive.

That impression is not true. The book is realistic and Warren presents the challenges that every Christian should work for. From the first declaration of "this is not about you" to "living with purpose is the only way to really live," the book is peppered with heartfelt applications of bible passages as Warren presents the five purposes that I mentioned above. My eyes did not get blurred not my heart pounded with sadness or inspiration but I felt that my spirit flew and soured while reading some of its pages.

A dear friend mentioned that the youngest child of Warren committed suicide this year, April 5, 2013 after struggling with mental illness that caused severe depression. In my life, I've seen several similar cases like this: a successful parent losing a child possibly because the celebrity parent got too focused with fame and in the process neglected his o her own family. But I do not know Warren's complete story so I'd rather keep my comments to myself.

At some point in your life you should read this book.

Seeing Cassie's listing of this reminded me to add it to my books even though I never finished it. I did read over 3/4th of it.

When I finished Retreat in Daily Life the St. Ignatian Spiritual Exercises I was looking for something to fill the gap and a few of the ladies who had been in my group were going to read this so I thought I'd join them in it. None of us ever finished it; it was such a weak follow-up. Maybe I would have liked it better or gotten more out of it at another time or under different circumstances, I don't know.

This book was very annoying....I have to admit not everything in it was bad and some things were convicting and encouraging but...plenty of the book was scripture taken out of context, terrible paraphrasing, and shallow translations of scripture to back up arguments that the scripture in it's original language did not mean to back up.

Also, there was too much focus on the individual rather than on God ...initially it was all about how life isn't about you but then it proceeded to focus on looking into yourself and making decisions in life in regards to your calling based on how you feel about it rather than on scripture and prayer. Also. A bunch of jargon about self love and misplaced positions on the most important things about being a Christian.

There were many contradictions that left me confused as to what he was trying to communicate.

Also, the author came across as very egotistical in why we should listen to him and how the church that he pastors is so amazing *and* all the other resources were books that *he* wrote or someone from *his* church. Absolutely no outside resource backing up his book.

...I would definitely never recommend this to anyone. If you're looking for a book to give you purpose in your life...read the Bible! But, if you want to read another book besides that there are many others... Don't waste your time on this one.

Rick Warren was a customer of mine (Greatsite.com - The Bible Museum) before he released this best-selling and now extremely famous book. I find it curious that so many of my Christian friends are quick to criticize this book as being a "primer" of "Christianity 101" or an introduction to the Christian Faith and Life... and they feel it does not go deep enough theologically. That is not a valid criticism of this book in my opinion, because this book does not represent itself to be a seminary-level text of a theologically comprehensive nature. It is precisely and unashamedly what they criticize it for being: an introduction to Christianity. It is an excellent introduction to Christianity, and I see why it is so well-received. It is no substitute for the Bible, nor does it claim to be, but for those who may be intimidated by the Bible... this book has offered many millions a path toward putting aside that intimidation and encouraging them to read their Bible and fellowship with a local body of believers.

Our life now here on earth is the warm-up act - the
dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice what we will
do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either we are in one
now, we're just coming out of one, or we're getting ready to go into another one.

The reason for this is that God is more interested in
our character than our comfort. God is more interested in making our life holy than He is in making our life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's
not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character,
in Christ likeness.

Life being hills and valleys (you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth), no matter how good things are in our life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in our life, there is always something good we can thank God for.

We can focus on our purposes, or we can focus on our problems. If we focus on our problems, we're going into
self-centeredness,'which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get our focus off yourself and ontoGod and others.

We have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes for my life? God didn't put us on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what we are than what we do.

That's why we're called human beings, not human
doings.