Purpose

Just started reading The Call by Os Guinness. I'm only about 20 pages into the book, but I think it'll be a good week's read.

The book discusses three different views on purpose from three different schools of thought.

1) The Eastern View – used in religions like Buddhism and Hinduism, the view of purpose is like the view of everything else. It has no significance in this life or in eternity. The final reality is an impersonal ground of being, or "undifferentiated impersonal." Forget yourself, and forget your purpose. "Seen from this perspective, freedom is not freedom to be individual, but freedom from individuality."
2) The Secularist Answer – used by Atheists, most agnostics, naturalists and humanists. The final reality is chance and there is no God, so purpose is completely up to us. We don't discover it, we decide it.
3) The Biblical Answer – Common to Jews and Christians. Purpose isn't impersonal or chance, but a personal creator God who has a purpose for all of us. Purpose is two-faceted: who we are created to be and who we are called to be. "It gives our lives an inspiration and a dynamism that transforms them into an enterprise beyond any comparison."

What sets Christians and Jews apart in the Biblical Answer, is that we aren't just called, but our Caller is a personal savior. His name is Jesus. His call: "Follow me."