The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren The book is well written and probably very effective on many people who are "plan your work, work your plan" people. Don't get me wrong I like the book and the importance he put on the five purposes of life:

• Worship - you were planned for God's pleasure.
• Fellowship - you were formed to be part of God's family.
• Discipleship - you were created to become like Christ.
• Ministry - you were shaped for God's service.
• Mission - you were made to tell other's about Christ.

What I do know about myself is that I feel I have been most successful as an oblique learner. At an early age I realized that I frequently cannot get to my more difficult goals from the most direct route. When I got stuck with a difficult problem in school, I realized a successful strategy for me was to back off.  I would work on something else or work in a different direction realizing that in the end I would have to work even harder to make up for lost time. I remember in college I was working on a programming problem for several hours and seemed to be getting no where. So I called it a night and headed back to the dorm. As I crossed the drill field I started to reschedule my next day's activities to allow time to work on this problem again when I realized the solution to my problem. Naturally I turned around and went back to finish the problem. My gut tells me that the growth in my faith has occured primarily in activities I did not consider as on my direct route to Christ. God's plan has frequently not been my plan. It sure helps to be flexible if you are not perfect.

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