Garcia, Malee N.

BCR 4-2

The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For?

I am not really fond of reading books unless it is required to do so like what I am doing
today. Our professor in Media Literacy gave us assignment to be done after two weeks, and one
of those is to make a book review. As I have mentioned above, I am really not into books
especially non-fiction. But because of the recent Papal Visit of Pope Francis in our country,
many Filipinos have strengthened their faith, they have regained their trust in God. For me, this
is a time for reflection, reconciling while doing my paper. Therefore, I chose Rick Warrens book
entitled, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For?
According to Wikipedia, this book is published in 2002 and has been in in the list of New
York Times Best Seller for the longest period in history. It also topped the best-seller charts of
Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly, for selling over 30 million copies in 2007.
This book caters a 40-day spiritual journey for its readers, containing authors insight
about worshipping God, bible verses, and reflections. Corresponding to these, there are
challenging quotes that will help a person to define Christian Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship,
Christian Ministry, and Evangelism.
In the introduction of this book, there is a written fragment saying, A Journey with
Purpose, that reminds any person who will read this book to not just enjoy the journey of life,
but also to understand that every being has a purpose. A purpose is a mission that needs to be
accomplished in due time.
As a reader of this book, I can truly say that Warren made me realize that creating a
connection to God, to my family and friends through communication is much better than making
social media my daily journal. It also opened my mind that real people can give you better life
advices than those quotations posted online. Yes, they can be inspirational too but words of
wisdom are more credible if they came from experienced individuals. Also, the book tells us that
the greatest gift we can give to our loved ones is time, that each of us shall cherish and seize
every moment with our family.
However, Rick Warren has been criticized for choosing only the bible verses