This post is part of our "Purpose Driven Life" book study, the first official Christian Boylove Forum book study. If you would like to join in, do not be discouraged by the thought that it's too late. The book is designed to be read one chapter per day but we only study one chapter every Monday and Thursday in this forum, so if you read it at the book's recommended pace, you will catch up with us very quickly. If you do not own the book, you can read the first few chapters for free here: http://www.purposedrivenlife.com/en-US/AboutUs/AboutTheBook/FirstSevenChapters.htm while you look for the book in your local bookstores or wait for it to arrive from an online merchant.


This chapter deals with loving God even when we can't feel his presence. It's refreshing to read this chapter and realize that I am not the only one this happens to.

As BL's, there are a lot of things that can cause us to feel distant from God and it's easy to blame ourselves and consider ourselves unworthy. But this feeling is not unique to us, not our fault, and a normal part of a relationship with God as this chapter illustrated.

The big takeaway for me is that it's ok to express that to God, he can handle it. It's ok to ask God why he's abandoned us. It's ok to ask God "why me?" it's ok to express our feelings to him even when those feelings do not glorify God. David did it repeatedly in the psalms, yet he always ended them by praising God anyway; Job did the same, and so should we. So, next time I feel like life isn't fair, like I got the short end of the stick, next time I feel like asking God why I don't get to have a family like my friends do, or why I have to sacrifice my sexuality, or why I am forced to live in a world that hates us...I'll express it, I'll ask God those questions...then I'll praise him anyway.

This almost marks the end of the first unit of the book and the first of our purposes: We are created to worship God.

to participate actively in the book study, feel free to respond to this post or to any of the discussion questions Cat or anyone else posts below. You don't necessarily need to respond to what is written on this post, you may prefer instead to talk about the parts of the chapter that spoke to you even if it wasn't something mentioned on this post. You may also pose your own discussion questions.