February 21, 2025 • 18 mins
This episode delves into the true nature of purpose and its often-misunderstood dimensions. We challenge listeners to distinguish their real purpose from people-pleasing, emphasizing that fulfilling one’s purpose can energize rather than drain.
• The importance of purpose is often misunderstood
• Central purpose: glorifying God above all
• Confusion between people-pleasing and true purpose
• Energizing purpose vs. draining activities
• Purpose defined by who we are becoming, not just what we do
• Breakdown of purpose into assignments, roles, and passions
• Exercise on envisioning one's legacy at their funeral
• Encouragement to embrace purpose as a lifelong journey
Let us know your thoughts on this episode!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello everybody and welcome once again to the
Unlearned Podcast.
I'm your host, beth Abigail,aka R-A-R-A, and this is Freedom
Friday, where we come and sharesomething we've unlearned
recently and how it has made usjust a little bit more free.
So, before I get started, onceagain, thank y'all for listening
, for watching.
(00:29):
We absolutely love thiscommunity that we're building.
Hey, if any of our episodes,our segments, are of any value
to you, don't keep it toyourself.
Share like comment, let us know.
We're encouraged by you.
We hope you're encouraged by usand, yeah, we absolutely love
you guys.
And so just, let's just keepbuilding up the community guys.
(00:53):
Let's keep sharing, keeptelling people about the
Unlearned Podcast.
You guys are already doing itand we're seeing it.
More and more people aregetting to see it every day.
So, thank you, thank you, thankyou, thank you, all right.
So purpose, I think, has becomevery, um, it has felt like an
overrated topic.
(01:13):
I don't think it is overratedbecause it's very important, but
it's felt very overrated.
You got a lot of people talkabout purpose all the time.
Uh, you have a lot of peoplethat you know there's like
everybody.
But the question you have toask yourself the question why do
people talk about it all thetime?
We talk about it all the timebecause it matters very deeply.
There is something aboutknowing that every time you wake
(01:36):
up in the morning, you wake upfor a reason.
A lot of times that a lot ofpeople including me at times,
and maybe even you, have wokenup unsure of why we're awake,
unsure why we need to get out ofbed, unsure why we really need
to pursue whatever life we'repursuing.
(01:58):
I don't really know why, andthat can be very frustrating at
times.
So you have a lot of people whohave made, quite frankly, a lot
of money and also who have madehad a lot of impact on the
world, talking about purpose indifferent ways.
Well, I'm going to do that.
So I just did all this lead upjust to tell you, yeah, we're
(02:20):
going to talk about purpose, butI kind of want to share with
you something I've unlearnedabout it, and it's really,
really helped me recently in myjourney.
So I'm in a Bible study class atchurch, and so one of the
things that recently I wasreminded of is that there is one
(02:40):
central purpose that we allhave, and it's no small thing.
That purpose is to glorify God,glorify our creator, make our
creator look better, right, makeour creator look great.
Our job is to make our creatorlook great, not necessarily us,
but to make our creator lookgreat.
So glorify God.
(03:01):
And I love that simplicitybecause number one, it takes the
mystery out of a lot of things.
And so, if I know, when I haveit's like how, how do I make the
creator of the universe, howdoes my actions make people, uh,
view him in a in a differentway?
(03:22):
How do my actions make peopleview God in an honoring way?
How does my life make peopleview God?
When I approach that, when Iapproach life like that, then I
think I can wrap my mind aroundit a little bit.
That's the first thing I'velearned about purpose.
(03:42):
It doesn't have to becomplicated.
It actually can be prettysimple.
So our purpose, our generalpurpose as human beings, is to
glorify God, to make our creatorlook great.
Here's, I think, one of thethings that is difficult is that
so much, if we're honest,sometimes we confuse our purpose
with people-pleasing.
(04:03):
I know that sounds like how doI confuse with people pleasing?
We confuse our purpose withpeople pleasing because so much
of our lives are not centeredaround pleasing God, but
pleasing people.
It's not centered aroundglorifying God and making our
creator great.
It's centered around makingsure other people feel good,
making sure other people arehappy, making sure other people
(04:24):
are happy, making sure otherpeople are pleased with us, want
us around, want to, you know,be near us, want to have a
relationship with us, which thenin turn, centers me and not God
, right?
So a lot of times we confusethat.
So what we think is where we'repursuing purpose.
We actually are pursuing peoplepleasing.
We are trying to please thosearound us.
(04:46):
We're trying to get applause.
We're trying to make sure thatwe get the A on our paper.
We try to make sure that otherpeople will smile at us.
We make other people smile whenreally excuse me when really
the goal is to make God smile.
And so if you haven'texperienced that difference
(05:08):
right, one way to kind of knowwhether or not maybe you're
focused more on people pleasingthan on purpose is that people
pleasing is a draining exercise.
It's very draining draining.
Being purposeful is energizingwhen you understand that you are
not here for others.
(05:29):
You're not here.
Let me rephrase that.
I don't want to bemisunderstood You're not born to
please other people, you'reborn to please God and in doing
so, a lot of times other peoplewill be positively impacted.
But you're not here to pleasethem.
That's not your first purpose.
Your first purpose is toglorify God, and so purpose
(05:55):
living is energizing People.
Pleasing is draining If youwake up and feel more drained
than you do, energized, aroundwhy you're here, what you're
supposed to be doing, how you'resupposed to be approaching life
.
If you feel more drained, it'svery possible that you're
confusing your purpose withpeople pleasing activities just
food for thought.
So that's the first thing rightPurpose glorifying God.
(06:20):
Second thing purpose is notabout pleasing people, and if
you are trying to figure outwhether or not you're doing one
or the other, a good way is like, hey, am I being drained most
of the time or am I energized?
And if you're being drained,you might be confusing purpose
with people pleasing.
Here's the major thing that Iunlearned though this was big
(06:41):
for me, I definitely was in thecamp of purpose is about what I
in the camp of purposes aboutwhat I do, purposes about what I
do, purposes about what I do,and I've gone through all these
different leadership trainings.
I've done a lot of things thathave had you kind of write your
purpose statement, right?
Or your mission statement foryour life, whatever you want to
call it, and I have written itdown.
I've written down several andthat sounded good.
(07:04):
It's like, oh yeah, I think Ican rock with this.
This feels about right.
Nothing has ever felt real,though.
For me there hadn't been astatement that I've written in
the past 15 years or so that hasfelt like, oh, I hit it, this
is it.
This is the way that I woulddescribe my glorifying God.
(07:26):
Right, I haven't hit it, um, orI hadn't hit it until several
months ago.
And one of the things thathelped me to hit it was to
understand two things.
Number one that purpose is notabout what I do.
That purpose is not about whatI do.
Purpose is about who I'mbecoming and who I am, who I am
(07:50):
and who I'm becoming.
Purpose is not about what youdo.
It's about who you are and whoyou're becoming.
And then the second thing ispurpose is broken down into
three things assignments, rolesand passions.
When you begin to really breakdown what your unique purpose is
again, umbrella of glorifyingGod, what your unique purpose is
(08:11):
, you're going to find it.
It lives in assignments androles and in your passion,
assignments, the things thatthroughout your life you are
called to do, different thingsin different seasons.
Assignments change all the time.
Uh, roles is the way you relateto other people your friend, a
daughter, um, a wife, a son, ahusband, um, yeah, you know, a
(08:36):
sister, a brother, a mentor, ateacher, um, a director, a
pastor.
You, you are these things topeople.
You have a role in people'slives.
You have a role in greatersociety.
You have something that isrelating to people.
All right, so it's broken downinto roles, and what I mean by
(08:58):
that is like, whatever it isthat you're doing is going to
live in how you're connecting topeople through those roles.
So your purpose is going tolive through your role as a
mother.
Your purpose is going to livethrough your role as a pastor.
Your purpose is going to livethrough your role as a mentor.
It's going to live through yourrole as a spouse.
(09:19):
It's going to live through yourrole as a child.
It's going to live through yourrole as a friend.
It's going to live through yourrole as a friend.
It's going to live through yourrole.
Okay, the third thing is passion, right, the thing that kind of
gives you that fulfills youright, the thing that fills you
up, the thing that you could doall the time and never get tired
(09:39):
of Purpose can live within yourpassion we talked about before
earlier on in the podcast.
Purpose and passion are twovery different things.
Purpose can live throughpassion.
It is not passion itself.
You're not always going to bepassionate about your purpose.
I will be the first to say Ihave not always been passionate
(10:00):
about I'll say not about mypurpose, but about different
assignments that were attachedto my purpose.
I haven't always been excitedabout I'll say not about my
purpose, but about differentassignments that were attached
to my purpose.
I've haven't always beenexcited about that, and so
passion doesn't have to be apart of purpose.
But, um, your passion will.
At some points it will.
It will live through yourpurpose, all right, uh, your,
I'm sorry, your purpose willlive through your passion, but
(10:22):
passion isn't.
You're not always going to bepassionate about your purpose.
I hope that makes sense.
So I like to think about purposethis is what really did it for
me, y'all like.
I like to think about purposein those three categories, like
woven through those threecategories, uh, assignments,
roles and passion.
And when I could.
When I was able to grasp that,two things happened.
I stopped trying to find mypurpose, you know.
(10:46):
This is why I wake up every day, forever and ever.
Until I'm 93 years old, Istopped trying to do that and
started paying attention towhere I was in my life.
This is where I am.
I have this role, I have theseroles.
I have many roles, right, um,I'm a wife, uh, I'm a mother,
I'm a you know leader of anorganization.
I'm a daughter, um, I'm amentor to some, I'm a friend,
(11:10):
I'm I'm all these differentroles Um, I and I have
assignments, right, god is, uh,has, has, has called me to focus
on doing certain things in mylife right now, right, and so
then there are things that Ijust love to do, and when I'm
able to really parse that out,then I say, okay, cool.
(11:32):
So first of all, I getencouraged because it's like I'm
not trying to find this onething that I'm trying to do and
I see that there's somethingthat lives that's threaded
throughout.
All of those things, all theroles, the assignments and the
passion that I have and the waythat I like to phrase it for me,
again, all of the under theumbrella, of glorifying God, of
(11:55):
making my creator look good.
What I have coined kind of as mypurpose statement is that I
want to be a living, breathingexample for those.
I'm sorry, let me say it again,let me get it right, I'm still
getting used to this.
Y'all.
This ain't like.
This is very fresh.
I'm a living, breathing exampleof what I believe to those
(12:21):
closest to me and those, um,that surround me, right, um, so
I'm a living, breathing,breathing example of what I say
I believe from those close, bothto those closest to me and to
the world around me.
And then the question is likewhat, what do I believe?
And I might go over that at alater, at another podcast but,
(12:43):
um, there are certain thingsthat I just sat down with myself
and say I believe these thingsreally, really deeply and I want
to be, I want to glorify God bybeing a living example of what
of of of these things that I sayI believe.
So it should live through myassignment, it should live
through my roles and it shouldlive through my passion, and it
(13:05):
doesn't go anywhere because Idon't, it's not going anywhere.
And so, even if my roles change, my assignments change and my
passion changes, because allthose things are subject to
change.
So one of the things that helpedme to work through this and
this is going to sound a littlemorbid, but uh, kind of thinking
about your funeral.
(13:25):
Okay, got to say it, we'regoing to think about your, your,
your, your death, all right.
So none of us are going to beactually be at our funerals
unless you, you know, decide to.
You know, fake, fake, do a fakeout and show up.
Anyway, I just my mind wentcrazy.
Let me come back.
So nobody's going to be attheir funeral.
So all we can do is imaginewhat it might be like.
(13:47):
So what I want you to do is Iwant to imagine as if you're
there.
I know it's weird, but do it.
Imagine that you're at your own,your own funeral, and then
imagine what people might say,not just what people might say
that are unique, but what arethings that they would say that
(14:07):
are similar.
What would you like for mostpeople to say about you?
Um, what people?
What?
Would there be a common themeof your life and, if so, what do
you want that theme to be?
What do you want the commontheme by all these people who
experienced you in differentroles of your life, who
(14:29):
experienced you at differentassignments and who experienced
different levels of your passion.
What is the thing, what is theway you'd like to be described
by all of those different people?
What would be in common aboutwhat they would say when you
begin to think about that, nomatter what role I have, no
matter what assignment I'm in,no matter what passion I have,
(14:53):
all of this would be true aboutme.
For me, it's that I live what Ibelieve.
That's what I want to be true.
I want anybody in my life tosay she lived out what she
believed.
Period, she was real about it.
She lived out.
She lived it out.
What was, what is it that youwould want people to say about
you?
And then write that down,because I think that will start
(15:18):
to help phrase this uniquepurpose statement that begins
that, that you can begin toreally like, internalize and say
wow, this is who I want tobecome every day.
I want to become a person who,blank I, ruth Abigail, wants to
(15:38):
become a person who lives outwhat she believes to those who
are closest to her and to theworld around her.
That's what I want to become aperson who lives out what she
believes to those who areclosest to her and to the world
around her.
That's what I want to becomeevery day.
When that hit and when I wentthrough that exercise and I
wrote it down, y'all tears cameto my eyes.
I actually wept that daybecause it was the first time
that I'd ever come to somethingthat I could really grab onto
(15:59):
and I believe that was trulyauthentic to who I was.
So that's my challenge let'sunlearn purpose.
Let's unravel what that means.
Let's take it from being thisbig thing that I have to find
and figure out to like this veryspecific kind of understanding
(16:19):
that my entire life is supposedto glorify God.
That is the purpose and thatthe way that that's lived out
will change throughout my life.
But at the end of the day, thisis what I want people to say
about me how would you phrasethe way you glorified God with
your life?
All right, cool, that's it,y'all.
(16:39):
I hope that was helpful andjust be encouraged as you are
continuing on living out eachday to the best of your ability
and just truly for all those,sometimes we just need to hear
this.
Waking up and knowing the reasonthat you woke up is a great way
(17:00):
to wake up.
Understand that the reason youwake up remains the same
throughout your entire life.
Don't stress over trying tofigure that out at different
points in your life.
I hope that that's encouraging.
The reason you got there is areason that everybody woke up
this morning.
Knowing what that reason isgives you the energy to move
(17:23):
every single day.
It gives you the energy to moveevery single day and it will
remain the same, no matter whatrole you're in the season that
you're in the assignment.
You have the passion you have.
Your reason for living is yourreason for living.
So, okay, that's it for real.
All right.
Headband All right.
(17:43):
So, hey, that's it for real.
All right, had a bit All right.
So, uh, hey, y'all check outnext week.
Uh, freedom Friday.
And uh, until then, we willkeep unlearning together so that
we can experience more freedom.
Thank you once again forlistening the Unlearned Podcast.
(18:06):
We would love to hear yourcomments and your feedback about
the episode.
Feel free to follow us onFacebook and Instagram and to
let us know what you think.
We're looking forward to thenext time when we are able to
unlearn together to move forwardtowards freedom.
See you then.
Hello everybody and welcome once again to the
Unlearned Podcast.
I'm your host, beth Abigail,aka R-A-R-A, and this is Freedom
Friday, where we come and sharesomething we've unlearned
recently and how it has made usjust a little bit more free.
So, before I get started, onceagain, thank y'all for listening
, for watching.
(00:29):
We absolutely love thiscommunity that we're building.
Hey, if any of our episodes,our segments, are of any value
to you, don't keep it toyourself.
Share like comment, let us know.
We're encouraged by you.
We hope you're encouraged by usand, yeah, we absolutely love
you guys.
And so just, let's just keepbuilding up the community guys.
(00:53):
Let's keep sharing, keeptelling people about the
Unlearned Podcast.
You guys are already doing itand we're seeing it.
More and more people aregetting to see it every day.
So, thank you, thank you, thankyou, thank you, all right.
So purpose, I think, has becomevery, um, it has felt like an
overrated topic.
(01:13):
I don't think it is overratedbecause it's very important, but
it's felt very overrated.
You got a lot of people talkabout purpose all the time.
Uh, you have a lot of peoplethat you know there's like
everybody.
But the question you have toask yourself the question why do
people talk about it all thetime?
We talk about it all the timebecause it matters very deeply.
There is something aboutknowing that every time you wake
(01:36):
up in the morning, you wake upfor a reason.
A lot of times that a lot ofpeople including me at times,
and maybe even you, have wokenup unsure of why we're awake,
unsure why we need to get out ofbed, unsure why we really need
to pursue whatever life we'repursuing.
(01:58):
I don't really know why, andthat can be very frustrating at
times.
So you have a lot of people whohave made, quite frankly, a lot
of money and also who have madehad a lot of impact on the
world, talking about purpose indifferent ways.
Well, I'm going to do that.
So I just did all this lead upjust to tell you, yeah, we're
(02:20):
going to talk about purpose, butI kind of want to share with
you something I've unlearnedabout it, and it's really,
really helped me recently in myjourney.
So I'm in a Bible study class atchurch, and so one of the
things that recently I wasreminded of is that there is one
(02:40):
central purpose that we allhave, and it's no small thing.
That purpose is to glorify God,glorify our creator, make our
creator look better, right, makeour creator look great.
Our job is to make our creatorlook great, not necessarily us,
but to make our creator lookgreat.
So glorify God.
(03:01):
And I love that simplicitybecause number one, it takes the
mystery out of a lot of things.
And so, if I know, when I haveit's like how, how do I make the
creator of the universe, howdoes my actions make people, uh,
view him in a in a differentway?
(03:22):
How do my actions make peopleview God in an honoring way?
How does my life make peopleview God?
When I approach that, when Iapproach life like that, then I
think I can wrap my mind aroundit a little bit.
That's the first thing I'velearned about purpose.
(03:42):
It doesn't have to becomplicated.
It actually can be prettysimple.
So our purpose, our generalpurpose as human beings, is to
glorify God, to make our creatorlook great.
Here's, I think, one of thethings that is difficult is that
so much, if we're honest,sometimes we confuse our purpose
with people-pleasing.
(04:03):
I know that sounds like how doI confuse with people pleasing?
We confuse our purpose withpeople pleasing because so much
of our lives are not centeredaround pleasing God, but
pleasing people.
It's not centered aroundglorifying God and making our
creator great.
It's centered around makingsure other people feel good,
making sure other people arehappy, making sure other people
(04:24):
are happy, making sure otherpeople are pleased with us, want
us around, want to, you know,be near us, want to have a
relationship with us, which thenin turn, centers me and not God
, right?
So a lot of times we confusethat.
So what we think is where we'repursuing purpose.
We actually are pursuing peoplepleasing.
We are trying to please thosearound us.
(04:46):
We're trying to get applause.
We're trying to make sure thatwe get the A on our paper.
We try to make sure that otherpeople will smile at us.
We make other people smile whenreally excuse me when really
the goal is to make God smile.
And so if you haven'texperienced that difference
(05:08):
right, one way to kind of knowwhether or not maybe you're
focused more on people pleasingthan on purpose is that people
pleasing is a draining exercise.
It's very draining draining.
Being purposeful is energizingwhen you understand that you are
not here for others.
(05:29):
You're not here.
Let me rephrase that.
I don't want to bemisunderstood You're not born to
please other people, you'reborn to please God and in doing
so, a lot of times other peoplewill be positively impacted.
But you're not here to pleasethem.
That's not your first purpose.
Your first purpose is toglorify God, and so purpose
(05:55):
living is energizing People.
Pleasing is draining If youwake up and feel more drained
than you do, energized, aroundwhy you're here, what you're
supposed to be doing, how you'resupposed to be approaching life
.
If you feel more drained, it'svery possible that you're
confusing your purpose withpeople pleasing activities just
food for thought.
So that's the first thing rightPurpose glorifying God.
(06:20):
Second thing purpose is notabout pleasing people, and if
you are trying to figure outwhether or not you're doing one
or the other, a good way is like, hey, am I being drained most
of the time or am I energized?
And if you're being drained,you might be confusing purpose
with people pleasing.
Here's the major thing that Iunlearned though this was big
(06:41):
for me, I definitely was in thecamp of purpose is about what I
in the camp of purposes aboutwhat I do, purposes about what I
do, purposes about what I do,and I've gone through all these
different leadership trainings.
I've done a lot of things thathave had you kind of write your
purpose statement, right?
Or your mission statement foryour life, whatever you want to
call it, and I have written itdown.
I've written down several andthat sounded good.
(07:04):
It's like, oh yeah, I think Ican rock with this.
This feels about right.
Nothing has ever felt real,though.
For me there hadn't been astatement that I've written in
the past 15 years or so that hasfelt like, oh, I hit it, this
is it.
This is the way that I woulddescribe my glorifying God.
(07:26):
Right, I haven't hit it, um, orI hadn't hit it until several
months ago.
And one of the things thathelped me to hit it was to
understand two things.
Number one that purpose is notabout what I do.
That purpose is not about whatI do.
Purpose is about who I'mbecoming and who I am, who I am
(07:50):
and who I'm becoming.
Purpose is not about what youdo.
It's about who you are and whoyou're becoming.
And then the second thing ispurpose is broken down into
three things assignments, rolesand passions.
When you begin to really breakdown what your unique purpose is
again, umbrella of glorifyingGod, what your unique purpose is
(08:11):
, you're going to find it.
It lives in assignments androles and in your passion,
assignments, the things thatthroughout your life you are
called to do, different thingsin different seasons.
Assignments change all the time.
Uh, roles is the way you relateto other people your friend, a
daughter, um, a wife, a son, ahusband, um, yeah, you know, a
(08:36):
sister, a brother, a mentor, ateacher, um, a director, a
pastor.
You, you are these things topeople.
You have a role in people'slives.
You have a role in greatersociety.
You have something that isrelating to people.
All right, so it's broken downinto roles, and what I mean by
(08:58):
that is like, whatever it isthat you're doing is going to
live in how you're connecting topeople through those roles.
So your purpose is going tolive through your role as a
mother.
Your purpose is going to livethrough your role as a pastor.
Your purpose is going to livethrough your role as a mentor.
It's going to live through yourrole as a spouse.
(09:19):
It's going to live through yourrole as a child.
It's going to live through yourrole as a friend.
It's going to live through yourrole as a friend.
It's going to live through yourrole.
Okay, the third thing is passion, right, the thing that kind of
gives you that fulfills youright, the thing that fills you
up, the thing that you could doall the time and never get tired
(09:39):
of Purpose can live within yourpassion we talked about before
earlier on in the podcast.
Purpose and passion are twovery different things.
Purpose can live throughpassion.
It is not passion itself.
You're not always going to bepassionate about your purpose.
I will be the first to say Ihave not always been passionate
(10:00):
about I'll say not about mypurpose, but about different
assignments that were attachedto my purpose.
I haven't always been excitedabout I'll say not about my
purpose, but about differentassignments that were attached
to my purpose.
I've haven't always beenexcited about that, and so
passion doesn't have to be apart of purpose.
But, um, your passion will.
At some points it will.
It will live through yourpurpose, all right, uh, your,
I'm sorry, your purpose willlive through your passion, but
(10:22):
passion isn't.
You're not always going to bepassionate about your purpose.
I hope that makes sense.
So I like to think about purposethis is what really did it for
me, y'all like.
I like to think about purposein those three categories, like
woven through those threecategories, uh, assignments,
roles and passion.
And when I could.
When I was able to grasp that,two things happened.
I stopped trying to find mypurpose, you know.
(10:46):
This is why I wake up every day, forever and ever.
Until I'm 93 years old, Istopped trying to do that and
started paying attention towhere I was in my life.
This is where I am.
I have this role, I have theseroles.
I have many roles, right, um,I'm a wife, uh, I'm a mother,
I'm a you know leader of anorganization.
I'm a daughter, um, I'm amentor to some, I'm a friend,
(11:10):
I'm I'm all these differentroles Um, I and I have
assignments, right, god is, uh,has, has, has called me to focus
on doing certain things in mylife right now, right, and so
then there are things that Ijust love to do, and when I'm
able to really parse that out,then I say, okay, cool.
(11:32):
So first of all, I getencouraged because it's like I'm
not trying to find this onething that I'm trying to do and
I see that there's somethingthat lives that's threaded
throughout.
All of those things, all theroles, the assignments and the
passion that I have and the waythat I like to phrase it for me,
again, all of the under theumbrella, of glorifying God, of
(11:55):
making my creator look good.
What I have coined kind of as mypurpose statement is that I
want to be a living, breathingexample for those.
I'm sorry, let me say it again,let me get it right, I'm still
getting used to this.
Y'all.
This ain't like.
This is very fresh.
I'm a living, breathing exampleof what I believe to those
(12:21):
closest to me and those, um,that surround me, right, um, so
I'm a living, breathing,breathing example of what I say
I believe from those close, bothto those closest to me and to
the world around me.
And then the question is likewhat, what do I believe?
And I might go over that at alater, at another podcast but,
(12:43):
um, there are certain thingsthat I just sat down with myself
and say I believe these thingsreally, really deeply and I want
to be, I want to glorify God bybeing a living example of what
of of of these things that I sayI believe.
So it should live through myassignment, it should live
through my roles and it shouldlive through my passion, and it
(13:05):
doesn't go anywhere because Idon't, it's not going anywhere.
And so, even if my roles change, my assignments change and my
passion changes, because allthose things are subject to
change.
So one of the things that helpedme to work through this and
this is going to sound a littlemorbid, but uh, kind of thinking
about your funeral.
(13:25):
Okay, got to say it, we'regoing to think about your, your,
your, your death, all right.
So none of us are going to beactually be at our funerals
unless you, you know, decide to.
You know, fake, fake, do a fakeout and show up.
Anyway, I just my mind wentcrazy.
Let me come back.
So nobody's going to be attheir funeral.
So all we can do is imaginewhat it might be like.
(13:47):
So what I want you to do is Iwant to imagine as if you're
there.
I know it's weird, but do it.
Imagine that you're at your own,your own funeral, and then
imagine what people might say,not just what people might say
that are unique, but what arethings that they would say that
(14:07):
are similar.
What would you like for mostpeople to say about you?
Um, what people?
What?
Would there be a common themeof your life and, if so, what do
you want that theme to be?
What do you want the commontheme by all these people who
experienced you in differentroles of your life, who
(14:29):
experienced you at differentassignments and who experienced
different levels of your passion.
What is the thing, what is theway you'd like to be described
by all of those different people?
What would be in common aboutwhat they would say when you
begin to think about that, nomatter what role I have, no
matter what assignment I'm in,no matter what passion I have,
(14:53):
all of this would be true aboutme.
For me, it's that I live what Ibelieve.
That's what I want to be true.
I want anybody in my life tosay she lived out what she
believed.
Period, she was real about it.
She lived out.
She lived it out.
What was, what is it that youwould want people to say about
you?
And then write that down,because I think that will start
(15:18):
to help phrase this uniquepurpose statement that begins
that, that you can begin toreally like, internalize and say
wow, this is who I want tobecome every day.
I want to become a person who,blank I, ruth Abigail, wants to
(15:38):
become a person who lives outwhat she believes to those who
are closest to her and to theworld around her.
That's what I want to become aperson who lives out what she
believes to those who areclosest to her and to the world
around her.
That's what I want to becomeevery day.
When that hit and when I wentthrough that exercise and I
wrote it down, y'all tears cameto my eyes.
I actually wept that daybecause it was the first time
that I'd ever come to somethingthat I could really grab onto
(15:59):
and I believe that was trulyauthentic to who I was.
So that's my challenge let'sunlearn purpose.
Let's unravel what that means.
Let's take it from being thisbig thing that I have to find
and figure out to like this veryspecific kind of understanding
(16:19):
that my entire life is supposedto glorify God.
That is the purpose and thatthe way that that's lived out
will change throughout my life.
But at the end of the day, thisis what I want people to say
about me how would you phrasethe way you glorified God with
your life?
All right, cool, that's it,y'all.
(16:39):
I hope that was helpful andjust be encouraged as you are
continuing on living out eachday to the best of your ability
and just truly for all those,sometimes we just need to hear
this.
Waking up and knowing the reasonthat you woke up is a great way
(17:00):
to wake up.
Understand that the reason youwake up remains the same
throughout your entire life.
Don't stress over trying tofigure that out at different
points in your life.
I hope that that's encouraging.
The reason you got there is areason that everybody woke up
this morning.
Knowing what that reason isgives you the energy to move
(17:23):
every single day.
It gives you the energy to moveevery single day and it will
remain the same, no matter whatrole you're in the season that
you're in the assignment.
You have the passion you have.
Your reason for living is yourreason for living.
So, okay, that's it for real.
All right.
Headband All right.
(17:43):
So, hey, that's it for real.
All right, had a bit All right.
So, uh, hey, y'all check outnext week.
Uh, freedom Friday.
And uh, until then, we willkeep unlearning together so that
we can experience more freedom.
Thank you once again forlistening the Unlearned Podcast.
(18:06):
We would love to hear yourcomments and your feedback about
the episode.
Feel free to follow us onFacebook and Instagram and to
let us know what you think.
We're looking forward to thenext time when we are able to
unlearn together to move forwardtowards freedom.
See you then.
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