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    Rising to the Call: Discovering the Ultimate Purpose of Your Life
    Rising to the Call: Discovering the Ultimate Purpose of Your Life
    Rising to the Call: Discovering the Ultimate Purpose of Your Life
    Ebook73 pages9 hours

    Rising to the Call: Discovering the Ultimate Purpose of Your Life

    By Os Guinness

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    About this ebook

    Facet by facet this internationally acclaimed Christian thinker examines life and the universal search for its meaning. What is "the call"? Far bigger than our jobs, deeper than our personal accomplishments, higher than our wildest ideas of self-fulfillment, our "calling" addresses the very essence of our existence. Discovering it in times past has changed whole nations and cultures. It could do the same to ours. A classic reflective work in the tradition of C. S. Lewis and Oswald Chambers,now ready to challenge the latest generation of high school and college graduates.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateMay 26, 2008
    ISBN9781418517274
    Author

    Os Guinness

    Os Guinness is an author and speaker living in the Washington, D.C., area. Born in China during World War II, Guinness left in 1951, after the Chinese Revolution. A graduate of the University of London and Oxford, Guinness is a former visiting fellow of the Brookings Institution. He has written or edited more than twenty books, including The Call, Invitation to the Classics, and Long Journey Home. A frequent speaker and seminar leader at political and business conferences in the United States, Europe, and Asia, Guinness has lectured at many universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Stanford, and has often spoken on Capitol Hill.

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      Book preview

      Rising to the Call - Os Guinness

      RISING TO

      THE CALL

      RISING TO

      THE CALL

      OS GUINNESS

      9780849928772_INT_0003_001

      © 2003 by Os Guinness.

      All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

      Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

      Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations used in this book are from the Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Guinness, Os.

        Rising to the call / by Os Guinness.

           p. cm.

        ISBN 978-0-8499-1783-7 (HC)

        ISBN 978-0-8499-2877-2 (TP)

        1. Vocation—Christianity. 2. Spiritual life—Christianity. I. Title.

        BV4740.G86 2003

        248.4—dc21

      2003000948

      Printed in the United States of America

      08 09 10 11 12 LS 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      D.O.M.

      and to C.J.

      with love and gratitude

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      CHAPTER 1

      The Ultimate Why

      CHAPTER 2

      Everyone, Everywhere, Everything

      CHAPTER 3

      Do What You Are

      CHAPTER 4

      The Audience of One

      CHAPTER 5

      Dreamers of the Day

      INTRODUCTION

      How do we each find and fulfill the central purpose of our lives? No theme I know strikes a deeper resonance with more people today than discovering life’s purpose. It’s a question, of course, but it’s more—far, far more. It’s a question that’s a passion, a longing, a hunger, a restless stirring in our souls, a driving motivation that fires the deepest parts of our lives and taps into the most powerful sources of our energy.

      This question, as we’ll see, comes up at various points in life. This little book addresses many of them, but it is written for people at two moments in particular:

      The first is the golden big seven years—the years between eighteen and twenty-five when childhood lies behind and you have climbed high enough to see the shimmering vistas ahead. But how do you choose when there is so much to choose from? And how do you choose well when you have more energy than experience and your excitement outstrips your wisdom? The notion of calling is the clearest, strongest guide to the challenges at that wonderful stage of life. There is no deeper meaning in life than to discover and live out your calling.

      The second moment is a few years later: for those who realize they chose badly the first time—usually because they didn’t know the notion of calling. They then wonder if they can have another chance, and how they can do a better job of choosing the second time around. Was novelist George Eliot right when she wrote, It is never too late to be what you might have been? The notion of calling is the deepest, surest encouragement at that particular moment in life. Your calling is deeper than your job, your career, and all your benchmarks of success. It is never too late to discover your calling.

      So read this book and let your mind run deep—thinking over your life, your family, your gifts, your hopes, your dreams, your friends, your world, and your goals. No truth in all human history has changed more lives and changed more societies. It can change you. It can change the world through you. Or rather, he can—for there is no calling without a caller and down the centuries God’s call has proved the ultimate Why in the human search for purpose. No one and nothing else even comes close.

      —OS GUINNESS

      CHAPTER

      1

      THE ULTIMATE WHY

      As you know, I have been very fortunate in my career and I’ve made a lot of money—far more than I ever dreamed of, far more than I could ever spend, far more than my family needs." The speaker was a prominent businessman at a conference near Oxford University. The strength of his determination and character showed in his face, but a moment’s hesitation betrayed deeper emotions hidden behind the outward intensity. A single tear rolled slowly down his well-tanned cheek.

      To be honest, one of my motives for making so much money was simple—to have the money to hire people to do what I don’t like doing. But there’s one thing I’ve never been able to hire anyone to do for me: find my own sense of purpose and fulfillment. I’d give anything to discover that.

      That issue—purpose and fulfillment—is one of the deepest issues in our modern world. At some point every one of us confronts the question: How do I find and fulfill the central purpose of my life? Other questions may come logically prior to and lie even deeper than this one—for example, Who am I? What is the meaning of life itself? But few questions are raised more loudly and more insistently today than the first. As modern people we are all on a search for significance. We desire to make a difference. We long to leave a legacy. We yearn, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, to leave the world a bit better. Our passion is to know that we are fulfilling the purpose for which we are here on earth.

      These passions can differ

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