book review: - The Call - Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life

Title: The Call – Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life
Author: Os Guinness
Publisher: W Publishing Group - Thomas Nelson Inc., 2003
Genre: Christian Living, Practical Life, General
ISBN: 849944376

Are you looking for purpose in life? For a purpose big enough to absorb every ounce of your attention, deep enough to plumb every mystery of your passions, and lasting enough to inspire you to your last breath? This book is about the reason why we are each here on earth. It explores the deepest, highest, grandest purpose that any human has ever experienced and history has ever known – a reason so profound that no one and nothing else even comes close.

Os Guinness sets the bar high in his Introduction to The Call – Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life with the startling statement above. What follows is twenty nine chapters which go from an exploration of why people seek meaning and purpose to an examination of the value of such a search when viewed from the end of one’s life.

Though made accessible with an abundance of true life illustrations and quotes, this book is not light reading. Guinness’s approach is philosophical, both in subject matter (Why am I here?) and development.

In each chapter he builds his case with logic, so that you can’t read the first few paragraphs of a chapter, then skip to the end and understand how you got there. But if you pay attention Guinness leads step by step and delivers on his promises. He lays out his arguments clearly, specifying that he will, for example, answer a given question in three points and then doing so, identifying those points with marker words: “First, second, third etc.”

He makes his ideas clear, additionally by including a focused statement of the thesis of each chapter somewhere about a third of the way through. These statements are identified as key by being set in italic font. They are then reiterated at the chapter’s end in question form, also italicized.

An additional aid to understanding, in the edition I read at least, was a "Study Guide" at the end which asks questions about key ideas in each chapter and leads the reader to personalize what was read.

This book certainly resonated with me. I found it holistic, convincing and challenging dealing as it does with hot-button issues like motivation, the use of natural talents, money and time, and a preoccupation with helping the reader discover what is their unique purpose for existence. Chapters I found especially insightful were:

- Chapter 9 “The Audience of One.” It asks the question, “Who do you live to please?” and challenges the reader to live for an Audience of One: “A life lived listening to the decisive call of God is a life lived before one audience that trumps all others – the Audience of One.”

- Chapter 19 “Locked Out and Staying There.” This chapter deals with the modern phenomenon of keeping one’s faith and public life separate. It challenges the reader to live a faith which is socially relevant.

- Chapters 20 (“A Focused Life”), 25 (“The Hour Has Come”) and 29 (“Last Call”) These three chapters deal with the concept of time in one form or another. They challenge the reader to use time well, rely on God’s timing, and live to finish well.

The Call is a book I think Christian and non-Christian seekers alike will find a thought-provoking read. It may be one which even changes the course of a life.

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Read "A Chat With Os Guinness" - transcript of a conversation between Os Guinness and questions via IM, posted by Navigators, 2001.