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The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life By Os Guinness ( Thomas Nelson )
Release Date: 2003-10-09
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List Price: $17.99
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Product Description
The Call continues to stand as a classic, reflective work on life's purpose. Best-selling author Os Guinness goes beyond our surface understanding of God's call and addresses the fact that God has a specific calling for our individual lives. Why am I here? What is God's call in my life? How do I fit God's call with my own individuality? How should God's calling affect my career, my plans for the future, my concepts of success? Guinness now helps the reader discover answers to these questions, and more, through a corresponding workbook - perfect for individual or group study. According to Guinness, "No idea short of God's call can ground and fulfill the truest human desire for purpose and fulfillment." With tens of thousands of readers to date, The Call is for all who desire a purposeful, intentional life of faith. Also availbale in audio format, narrated by Os Guinness.
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 a good meditation on the meaning that our creator gives us ( greerjasona )
It is not uncommon to hear Christians refer to their vocational calling, or to hear of things like a Biblical work ethic, but surprisingly little has been written about what work individuals are called to in their lives. Os Guinness, an Irish social critic and Christian writer, who lives in northern Virginia, has written a wonderful book, more than accessible to general audiences, that explores meaning in life. In this case, meaning for Guinness is not something self-directed, but something one is called to from God, as a maker directs and leads his created beings.
This book, at nearly 250 pages, is probably best read a chapter a day or so; because it is as much a meditation on calling, as it is a directed narrative for the reader to study. The reason for this method becomes obvious, as Guinness wants the reader to join with him and more importantly, with the God who created them, in thinking and working out daily what it means to have meaning and calling in whatever the reader has, is and will do in life. As such, this most definitely is not a self-help book, or a list of things to do. It is a meditation on how to live and what the good life looks like. There is a tension between life as a Christian believer and as someone living in a world with different expectations, and Guinness encourages thought, that as people live with these tensions, that the remember their first calling.
Guinness chapters follow a pattern of a narrative of a historical story, even from his family's Guinness Irish heritage, where he then makes points that build on the story for the sake of the reader to ponder and act on their place in God's world. He is at his strongest when he encourages readers to develop an awareness of the difference between the certainty of a call and the mystery of calling in life; and he carefully evaluates the seeming tight line between a spiritual work and a day to day, secular work. Mystery, gratitude, patience and understanding the reader's place in the world are vital things that Guinness wants the reader to dwell on. If there is a major theme of the book, it is that the reader is to live and work for an audience of one in life, the God who made them; and because of that audience much of the meaning soon will follow.
For Guinness, the path of calling is God to meaning to call to callings, otherwise life is described as mere drudgery work, and empty in its results. As a work of meditation and thinking, the reader should be encouraged and challenged to evaluate their lives and occupations in light of their audience of one. This is not a definitive work on vocational callings, and it has little in the way of direct answers for life in the post modern world. But what it will do, is to encourage the reader to think of the first things of life and dwell in those, for the eventual sake of their individual callings. Fewer things probably occupy people more than what they are about in their work. Guinness calls the reader to consider a higher view of their occupations as callings, given meaning by a creator, who wants us to interact with him in the midst of what he made us for.
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 Life in Transition
This is an excellent book for anyone who is passing through the mid point of their life. We all are in transition at some point in our lives, but the second half of an adult's life seems to be the time when we all look for a purpose. This book can be a guide for this time. Happy Reading !!
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The Call -- time to answer -- well worth it ( mcbrownie220 )
I have been reading "The Call" by Os Guinness; a 26 day devotional has taken me from Saturday, August 19, 2006 to Tuesday, November 20, 2008 to finish. I know it should have never taken me so long to read and yet it is a very thought provoking and challenging book.
The main point and question of this book is this... "Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life." In which in a nut shell living for Christ and serving him in whichever way he has called you to do. There is no division of the secular and spiritual work load here. As we see on this book, the spiritual work can be secular and the secular work can be spiritual - it all depends on why and for whom or to whom we are doing the work.
So many times throughout this book you must stop and grapple with what is written. This is not your normal daily devotional by which I mean it will cause you to question a lot of preconceived ideas and beliefs. You might just find your calling is not what you thought it was or what you wanted it to be.
I know a lot of people love the book "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren and it has helped a lot of people throughout the years. But if I was to choose between these two books I would have to choose Os Guinness' "The Call" hands down. In my humble opinion "The Call" is a more challenging call to discipleship and look at what the Christian life and what is meant by the "Call of Jesus" than the "Purpose Driven Life" even comes close to.
In closing the question stands... how are you to run the race well - if you don't know to which race you have been called to race? How are you to finish well - without the proper practice and training? This book will help you find you call and to help you follow His call - the call of Jesus.
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The Call - a true study in purpose
I have had the unique opportunity to hear the author speak, and his thoughts regarding the supreme nature of God and our opportunities to serve Him completely are as clear in his presentation as they are in this book. The Call draws you into an encouraging discussion of purpose and passion in life that motivates thought and action. There is no guilt attached to the discussion as is usually associated with a book of this type. The author never discourages with abusive "Thou shoulds" and "Thou shoulds not", but takes the far higher and more ambitious measures of association with a God that loves His creation; blessing each with a wide variety of skills, abilities and desires that are fulfilled only when given back Him for His service; and corroborating these assertions with a review of many biblical and historical figures. Further, he extends the full understanding of calling within the context of a reasonable and thoughtful study of cultural and sociological influences on our calling today--both good and bad. Obviously well-read and cerebral, in my opinion, Mr. Guinness is a highly recommended author and speaker who has written a fantastic book that will reward each reader. His ability to communicate God's heart for the fulfillment of each man is inspiring and humbling.
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 How To Decide ( rh_hcons )
"The Call," by, Os Guinness, is another one of those books which offers help to people seeking meaning and purpose to their lives. It's a fairly literate survey of historical figures caught in the same position trying to answer the question, "who am I, and what shall I do with the life I have?" For all his meandering through biographical examples, Guinness provides, at the end of each chapter, one simple solution, "Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer his call." While that advice is invaluable, it is neither particularly startling nor creatively insightful. Os's writing is ploddingly pedestrian--more like a survey of history textbook than a compelling, engaging book to lead one out of a wilderness of confusion into clarity of thought and earnestness of purpose. Skip the chapters and employ the recipe. There really is no shortcut, and reading about "how-to" is no substitute for doing: "Listen to Jesus of Nazareth; answer His call!"
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