The Purpose Driven Life expanded edition by Rick Warren

The Purpose Driven Life expanded edition by Rick Warren is a guide for a 42 day spiritual reflection upon your life and discovery of your purpose for living this life.  Mr. Warren is the pastor at Saddleback Church in California.  He takes the reader through this journey of life’s purpose in 42 days.  It is suggested in the first few pages not to try to read/study this book any quicker because as explained in the beginning of the book the Bible considers 40 days a spiritually significant time period.  God would ask each person in the Bible to spend 40 days to prepare oneself for a new purpose.  Mr. Warren asks the reader to do the same.  There are scriptural passages to also read in the guide in the back of the book as well as messages to listen to online.  The day’s devotion can be spent in as little as 15 minutes to get the day’s message or more in-depth time can be spent using all the resources provided.  It is also suggested that the scriptures should be read in various differ translations or paraphrases.  Each chapter also begins with a QR code which can be scanned with your smartphone so that you can listen to a 3 minute video for the chapter.  This is an easy to understand new version of the book released 10 years ago which incorporates the newer technology available to most people today. This is a book that can be read by oneself for self reflection by yourself but it is suggested that more can be gleaned when read for a group discussion/devotional study. 

I enjoyed this book much more than I expected to.  I was surprised at how this book could direct me on a more fulfilling pathway to God and understanding my purpose without being preachy.  Mr. Warren writes in an upbeat way without being wishy-washy which I appreciated.  I plan to reread this book slower as the writer intended in a group setting with a small group study.  I had not read the first book so I cannot say whether the changes made the book better but I can say that this book has improved my philosophy on life.  Thank you for taking the time, Mr. Warren, in updating your popular book.

This book was provided for this review by Booksneeze.