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A Journey Worth Taking: Finding Your Purpose in This World

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It seems to me that very few people today seek to understand life's big picture. We live our day-to-day lives happily on the whole, but often disconnected from any wider understanding of life; free from any true sense of a wider meaning or purpose. When considering this fact author Charles Drew says, "We are free to be ourselves, but we are fuzzy about who we are and how we fit in with what is going on around us. We lack vision, in other words, and because we lack vision we lack the passion we need to cut our way through the inevitable setbacks and frequent dullness in whatever we have set out to do. In the absence of a story that connects us to what is going on around us (and to other people), life grows lonely and its purpose often shrinks down to the hollow and even frantic pursuit of whatever pays the biggest dividends (emotionally, spiritually, or materially)." To address this fuzziness, this lack of vision, Drew wrote a book he called A Journey Worth Taking. It is a book that addresses the universal human quest for meaning or what some would term calling.

A Journey Worth Taking is, quite simply, a book about living. It is a book about calling, about meaning and about worldview. It is an attempt to provide a framework around which we can understand life. Drew, a Presbyterian pastor who serves Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, writes in a way that is relevant but Scriptural, up-to-date with the culture, but always dependent upon the ancient Scriptures. And what a grand combination this is. Drew clearly has his finger on the pulse of the culture and is able to speak its language, even while remaining faithful to Scripture. He is able to use terminology that the culture will understand, but to do so while giving those terms biblical meaning and import.

The book is built around four great ideas, all of which are drawn from the Bible. They are:

* Human life comes with built-in purpose.
* Something goes wrong with how we express our purpose.
* What gets ugly and destructive can be remade beautiful and right.
* What we do matters, because we are going somewhere.

These big ideas are otherwise known as creation, fall, redemption and consummation and through the book's 270 pages, Drew moves very deliberately through these ideas. He distinguishes between three levels of calling. In our primary calling, God calls us to Himself and to other people. Second, He calls us to self-discovery--to understanding and expressing who He has called us to be. And third, He calls us to serve in this world--to just do the things in this world that need to be done. We can only truly understand any sense of calling when we first understand that there is One who calls and that we are called first and foremost to know and to glorify Him. These levels of calling are examined through the biblical grid and are shown to provide a way that we can understand how life works. At the end of each chapter he pauses to provide insightful questions for discussion and reflection.

Though this is certainly not the first time I've encountered this four-fold grid, I was delighted to see what a useful tool it is to understand life and the reason God made us, the fall into sin, the redemption brought through Christ and the glorious consummation we anticipate with eager longing. It is useful in explaining why life doesn't work the way it is supposed to and equally useful in showing how life can be redeemed.

Around the same time that I read this book I also read Joel Osteen's Become a Better You. Though both books may be found on the same shelf in a bookstore, and where both claim to assist the quest for self-discovery, there is a marked difference between them. Where Osteen really acknowledges no authority outside of himself, Drew returns constantly to the Bible; where Osteen seems to turn to the Bible only to look for proof of what he already believes, Drew allows his understanding to be shaped and molded by Scripture. Osteen looks for no authority; Drew depends upon the authority that is his as he faithfully explains the Bible. The difference is pronounced; the difference makes all the difference. A Journey Worth Taking is the rare kind of book that I would confidently give away to either a Christian or a non-Christian friend. Unlike so many authors who deal with a similar subject, Drew carefully distinguishes between the Scripture's promises for believers and its promises for unbelievers; he does not extend to those who do not know Christ rights and privileges that are rightfully meant only for those who do.

Anyone looking for a life lived with purpose, a life where meaning is both assumed and understood, will find here a strong introduction to the kind of framework that can help a person understand the complexities of life. In the Foreword to this book David Powlison points out that Drew deals with topics of great importance. He summarizes in this way: "You find your true self...as you stop thinking so much about yourself. You live a wonderful life...as you learn to do mundane things well. You discover yourself...as you discover someone who is far more fascinating than you. Inspirational pep talks, techniques, and strategies can never get you to any of these places. Instead you need reasons. And Charles Drew gives you reasons. Good reasons." And, indeed, he does, for he gives reasons that are based on the word of the Creator rather than the word of mere humans. He looks to the Bible for his source and his authority and simply lets God's Word do the talking.

This is a book that is sure to vie for a position on the list of my favorite books of 2007. I can't think of another that has given me so much to think about. And I certainly cannot think of another that, when I finished it, I immediately started over and read it again. It is that good and that thought-provoking. I wouldn't be surprised to find myself reading it again before long. After all, this is the kind of book that can change a life.

I just began reading Drew's A JOURNEY WORTH TAKING, and I cannot overemphasize how Drew's theological maturity combined with good writing linked to my current life stage. I immediately began blogging about what I was reading and how it dovetailed the biblical theology that I am preaching through in the book of Jonah. Below is my post - a virtual review and thanksgiving for Drew's clarity and skill in writing.

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I just began reading a phenomenal, enjoyable, easy-reading but theological book titled, "A Journey Worth Taking: Finding Your Purpose in This World." Charles Drew is a pastor in Manhattan who writes after thirty years of pastoring churches in university cities. I found his book for four bucks on clearance at a bookstore - showing that many of the greatest gospel-centered relevant works are unmarketed and unknown. This is one of those.

My reading Drew coincides with my sermon prep-work on the Book of Jonah. I am joyously amazed at how the themes of the early verses of Jonah dovetail with the beginning chapters of "A Journey Worth Taking." It was not an intentional undertaking - I just needed a good read in the midst of the chaos.

Here is what I stand amazed to see: Jonah was a weak man who fled the presence of the Lord when he did not like the call of God to go to Nineveh. I am a weak man who wanders and sometimes runs from the gospel of God himself when I do not like how life and churchplanting and ME are too hard to figure out. THEN, in winsome gentleness, Charles Drew writes about the CALLING OF GOD that gives purpose to all of our weak and broken lives. For all of God's children, there is the primary call to God and people, the secondary call to a faithful and joyful expression of who we are as our very selves, and the tertiary call of God to service (to certain tasks and duties that, in a fallen world, simply need to be done).

From the beginning, Drew enjoyably makes it clear that the gospel (for weak people caught in the quagmire of our own survival, self-definition and sin) is about a Caller who is our Creator who created us to only know purpose according to his call! AND... his call is first and foremost to himself and to others (to relationship not task), secondly to `be ourselves' as he created us uniquely, and thirdly to be agents of service in a broken world...

But it is sad that much of the misery in my life occurs when I mix and match and confuse my primary, secondary and tertiary callings! Thank you for the simple diagnosis Mr. Drew!!! It is so clear - When I live life such that my primary calling is to figure my own identity out (secondary calling) - miserable. When I live life such that my primary calling is to conquer a task or job (tertiary calling) - miserable. Drew makes it plain that we are called by the God of the universe to himself - nothing parallels or should ever supplant that!!! And yet, my pain in life comes when I define myself by any other calling!

This is where Jonah shows us the pain. Jonah fled the call of God in his life (at that particular time) to go to Nineveh to cry out against the city as a means of God's gracious mercy. He didn't like that call. But the text says he fled the presence of God (1:3)! In other words, to use Drew's model, Jonah did not like the tertiary call to service, so he fled his primary call to know God himself! O my gosh, it's a picture of me.

This is a great read. From page one Drew lured me in and has connected my life with God's calling, and biblical theology with the big question of purpose. I highly recommend "A Journey Worth Taking." -weakchristan

Here is the blurb on the back of Charles D. Drew's "A Journey Worth Taking" from Tim Keller:

"Charles Drew has given us a great book to give away - especially to those who want a purpose-driven life and want to dig more deeply into the mysteries of that purpose... (He) takes us a step beyond the literature that is presently available on the subject. Highly recommended." - Timothy Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York

The book was really good. It was provided deep thoughts about living life as a Christian in order to find one's true calling. I had to read it for a class and felt like the book lends itself well to discussions.