It is not about you

Sharing a true story which happened in 2005. I have just read from this book by Jeffery L Sheler "Prophet of Purpose - The life of Rick Warren".

"The Purpose Driven Life" is written by Rick Warren, the evangelist pastor who delivered the invocation prayer at President Obama's inauguration on 20 Jan 2009. This book, first published in 2002, must have sold millions of copies to make Rick Warren a multi-millionaire many times over (He gave back 90% to the community!).

One unexpected global publicity of this book came from an incident in Atlanta in 2005. A fugitive Brian Nichols had kept a widow, Ashley Smith, in captivity, after killing 4 people after a courthouse escape. During the 7 hours held as a hostage, Smith asked Nichols if she could read something to him. She happened to pick up this book "The Purpose Driven Life" and started to read the chapter that she had planned to read for the day... chapter 32 "Using What God Gave You".

Smith read the opening section and was about to turn the page when Nichols interrupted her, asking her to read it over again... She reads, "God deserves your best. He shaped you for a purpose, and he expects you to make the most of what you have been given. He doesn't want you to worry about or covert abilities you don't have. Instead he wants you to focus on talents he has given to you to use...."

They talked about purpose and Nichols asked Smith, "What do you think mine is?" To which Smith suggested that "maybe it's to minister to people in prison," and urged him to turn himself in so that no one else would be hurt. "Maybe that's what God wants you to do, and he brought you here to my apartment so that you could know that."

The next morning, Smith was let go. Nichols surrendered to the police and he is now serving life sentences for his crimes.

"The Purpose Driven Life" is based on 2 famous teachings of Christ viz. the Great Commandment (Matthew22:37-40) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28;19-20).

On the success of this book, Rick Warren humbly said, "There's nothing new in 'The Purpose Driven Life' that hasn't already been stated in classic Christian faith over the past two thousand years. I happened to interpret it in a simple way for the 21st century."


"What you are is God's gift to you; what you do with yourself is your gift to God." - Danish Proverb