"Don't give up -- grow up."
“You were carefully and thoughtfully designed by God to add to life on earth, not just take from it.”
One of the books that keep you more kotivated to live happily and do not give up. Because if you are living like a real human then you are doing your responsibility in world. Do not forget earth is a temporary residance.

The church my fiancée and I go to is doing a financial class based on Rick Warren's "A Purpose Driven Life". Contrasting to what may be popular belief, Rick Warren is not liberal, he is in between liberalism and conservatism. He is a theologian who works to help others, not to make his works seem like the Bible. That is absolute nonsense. Someone very close to me has also read this book and recommended it to me, and I have to say, I am not disappointed. His devotionals are also beneficial. He is no deceitful individual, and has trustworthy applications.

Now, the financial part of his lessons give the individual some wisdom on how one believes God would have them spend their money. It is quite enlightening and something that we all need to consider and act on. His lessons are important and I would highly recommend him to any and everyone interested in learning about how, for one, they believe what God wants them to do with their money, and advice and wisdom on what God wants us to do with our lives.

boo. I hate this book

I read this in 2007 because it happened to be on the shelf of a nonprofit where I was sitting overnight as a volunteer phone-answerer waiting for the phone to ring.

The author, Rick Warren, has used his power and influence to say things that are unhelpful to groups to which I belong, and I don't share his theology, and therefore, I was not disposed to like his book. I took notes when I read it in 2007, wrote up something, and posted a review here on Goodreads. It generated a comment thread in 2015 that was personal and wasn't really about Warren's book anyway.

The original review and comment thread are no longer here because:

In 2021, I n  rewrote my review and moved it to Mediumn upon learning that The Purpose-Driven Life has sold FIFTY. MILLION. COPIES. And the book does not even make sense to me! Warren earns money from his book, and I likewise have the prerogative to monetize my work, on a platform of my own choosing, even if it's a response to his book. When I took down my review, I noticed that I may have misinterpreted one passage in the book; now I believe it's wrong for a different reason than I originally gave, so in 2021 I adjusted my argument. Four years later, in 2025, nearly 3,000 people have viewed my review on Medium, 3% of whom came from this Goodreads post over the last four years. Because Medium has since changed how its paywall works, I've updated the Goodreads post to provide an unpaywalled link.

The "lesson learned" from the 2015 comment exchange I turned into a separate Medium rant: n  Why Someone Complained About The Review You Posted to Goodreadsn. My review was too short? My review was too long? Whatever.

There's yet another lesson I'm always heartened to relearn (maybe this, too, will become another essay): that it's OK to change and delete stuff online. The beauty of the internet, as a Wise Old Person once told me back when AOL was still sending out CDs and we capitalized Internet, is that the information can change. If we have "lessons learned," we can share the better version of our knowledge and not leave our internet corner looking like a screenshot from 2007 or 2015. That's my 2 cents on what it could mean to live a purpose-driven life.

Unfortunately for anyone who actually has need of reading a book like The Purpose Driven Life, the book is not for them. The ideas portrayed are too simplistic to be educational or helpful. It certainly won't tell you what your purpose in life is.

As with most people who have read this book, I was encouraged by someone in my church to give it a go. My depression was hitting me hard, and this was the only thing my fellow Christian thought would help. I read it and shared opinions on it weekly over the phone with my church buddy. I agreed with most of the concepts and thought it was mildly uplifting, but it was generally not useful in any way. As my copy is too light and slick to be a doorstop, I can really see only limited potential use for the book.

Sometimes Christians want to prove to other Christians how entirely profound their faith is and how dedicated they are to God. One of the more substantial and immediately self-gratifying ways to accomplish the goal of showing off is to read this book and throw it at someone else. The others that get pressured into the pissing contest are only trying to associate, socialize, and fit in. It's a safe enough book for most modern Christian churches to force-feed it to their small group studies.

There's nothing really in this book to set a person on edge, nothing to hate about this. But no point to it either. One word of advice: if you read this, don't buy all the gadgets and supplemental readings advertised in it. God won't think you're a cheap sinner.

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.

O carte buna pentru oricine, mai ales pentru un crestin proaspat convertit sau pentru un crestin dezorientat, care cauta sa-si reaseze in ordine viata, identitatea si scopurile.
Cartea se doreste a fi abordata sub forma unei calatorii transformatoare, de 40 de zile, in 40 de capitole.
Daca m-a transformat, nu stiu...dar sigur mi-a prins tare bine in perioada asta.

This book is a good road map to success in your spiritual life. The author teaches us of God's love and His purpoese for our lives and how to walk in faith twards that purpose. I recommend this book to all who are struggling with their beliefs or attitudes twards their Lord and tward their purpose.Enjoy and Be Blessed.Diamond

Dear Mr. R.W,
Thank you for writing such a wonderful book.
For years, I’ve been battling loneliness within me, always reading some help books that didn’t really help at all. Actually, I’d read your book when I was in high school and maybe I’m too young at that time or not interested at all that’s why I didn’t took it seriously. And then, one day, I just woke up and decided that I don’t want to live my life like this anymore; a life with no purpose, a life full of regrets, worry, mediocrity and anxiety. I stopped. I felt this hunger within me, a hunger for peace and contentment and I start reading your book again, slowly.

It is painful for me to read that book. Every chapter is like a slap. Every paragraph had given me heartaches. But it’s okay because your book deserves to be read.

Your book taught me a lot. I learned that it’s okay to stumble, you just have to stand up again and never ever forget the faith you have in Christ. I learned that if we center our lives on Him, everything would fall into their right places.

“Earth is not heaven.” ~ This is one of the quotes that I really like in your book. We are experiencing pain because we are not home yet. God’s ultimate goal for our lives on earth is not comfort, but character development. Pain is vital because God uses it so we can mature and grow like Christ. God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life- longings that will never be fulfilled on this side of eternity. We’re not completely happy here because we are not supposed to be. Earth is not our final home and we were created for something much better.

Thank you for reminding me that God has emotions too. He can feel our pain and sufferings. He feels angry too. And He smiles and laughs whenever we did something that is pleasing for Him. Thank you for also pointing out that we shouldn’t focus on ourselves, sulking in self-pity but rather, we should start helping other people by our God-given abilities and pleasing God.

Reading your book made me realize that I’ve been living my life so wrong, always starting on the wrong line, always running and always focusing on my own ambitions. I learned that I cannot fulfill God’s purposes in my life while focusing on my own plans.

For years, I’m the type of person that has her doubts in God. And now, I realized that we cannot measure the greatness of God because He is infinite and we are only finite human beings.
I hope a lot of people would read your book. Imagine the world if only all the people living in it know their purpose. It would make a great difference.

Thank you for reaching out to people like me. It means a lot.

Sincerely,

J.

Actually, to be blunt and honest, this book was a lot better than I was expecting. Recommended.

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.

This was painful to read. Rick Warren is not only a mediocre (at best) writer, but the book is so absurdly simple it could have been written in one statement, "Put your trust in God and everything will be okay." What a sham.