Purpose Driven LIfe
Jun. 18th, 2004 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kayreSummary: The heart of worship is total surrender to God. Three barriers to total surrender: fear, pride, confusion. Fear is removed if we understand how much God loves us.
My thoughts: Warren says that “God wants to use your unique personality. Rather than its being diminished, surrendering enhances it.” So far the book has seemed to point to the exact opposite, encouraging conformity and negation of self. He goes on to again encourage unquestioning obedience to God.
“Genuine surrender says, ‘Father, if this problem, pain, sickness or circumstance is needed to fulfill your purpose and glory in my life or in another’s, please don’t take it away.’” Disturbing. There may indeed be occasional moments when this is appropriate, but to emphasize it seems to accept that God does indeed sometimes want us to suffer. This chapter tells us that God loves us passionately-- but that God’s will for us involves letting us suffer (causing us to suffer, even?) and calling us to do unpleasant and frustrating tasks without question or hesitation. What kind of loving Parent is that? (I wonder why he never uses the marriage metaphor?)
Warren quotes Job 22:21 to back up the idea that surrender to God brings peace. But that passage is from Job, spoken by one of the friends, who generally offer well-meaning but incredibly badly timed advice. And of course, Job is portrayed as someone who was indeed living God’s will, and suffered anyway-- was NOT at peace!
Very broad paraphrase of Romans 6:17.
Warren asserts that “stubborn temptations and overwhelming problems can be defeated by Christ when given to him”... but doesn’t back it up with Scripture.
He uses Romans 12:1 twice, in different versions, to make different points-- the first time emphasizing “spiritual worship”, the second time “reasonable service”-- different renderings of the same phrase.
With all this emphasis on obedience, I keep waiting for him to tell us how to discern God’s will in specific instances; reading the chapter titles, I can’t tell when or if he gets to that.
