How To Truly Discover Purpose

It’s Women’s History Month and Pastor Sarah is kicking it off with an all new devotional series about what it truly means to own your power in order to become everything God has called you to be.

This week we’re talking about power in purpose. Coming off of the heels of an incredible podcast episode with Khadeen Ellis, Pastor Sarah dives deeper into what “purpose” truly means. Hint; it’s not about a destination! Get ready to take notes.

It’s March and it is women’s history month. This month reminds me of the power connected to making history.
After all, we do not become history makers unless we are empowered by something that is bigger than us to do something that is gonna change the world, world or change the future for someone coming behind us and thinking about history and power.
We’ve decided to label this month revolutionary power, but we wanna focus on five things in specific in which revolutionary power shows up in our life.
So I’m doing this podcast with Kaine Ellis and she’s talking about her life and she’s talking about her family.
You guys already saw the podcast. So I won’t go into her whole story.
But there’s this moment that stood out to me.
And in this moment, Kaine says that she was waiting on purpose.
She was waiting on purpose to like hit her and to come in with the flag and announce that it had arrived, not realizing that she was literally standing in her purpose and didn’t even realize it.
It’s kind of like being on a field trip with your kids or your cousins or your nieces and nephews because I know Children, not some of y’all ministry yet.
And God bless you for it. Ok. But you’re in the car.
And what did the kids say over and over again? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
Are we there yet? They ask it over and over again.
But the moment you pull into the garage and you are finally at wherever you’re supposed to be, maybe it’s home, maybe it’s a relative’s house.
They’re knocked out in the back sleep.
They missed that along the journey all while they were asking, are we there yet?
Are we there yet that they were making progress? And not only were we making progress when we arrived?
They didn’t even realize it. I feel like that’s what happens to us when it comes to purpose.
We’re so anxious to get there. Are we there yet? Are we there? Is this that when is it coming?
When are we gonna get there?
And then if we aren’t careful, we’ll look up and we’ll miss the fact that this very moment we’re standing in is full of purpose.
As you know, the woman evolve team sends out a to Go plate every week.
It’s called our to Go plate.
And it’s a breakdown, a devotional of different women in the Bible who have demonstrated revolutionary something. Right.
This month, we’re talking about revolutionary power with Deborah. Deborah was the first woman judge for the Children of Israel.
And I love this narrative about Deborah because it tells us about a woman walking in her power as we launch Women’s History Month at Woman Evolve.
We’re gonna be sharing different aspect of Deborah’s story of everyday women’s story, but also perhaps pieces and glimpses of your story.
So I’m gonna turn to a scripture in the Bible that is about Deborah’s life.
I’ve got it up here on my laptop, but I also, you know, me, I like to pull it up in the word.
I don’t know why. I don’t know if it just feels a little bit more oily or something.
When I got my Bible, I don’t know, but I just wanna pull this open.
So in judges, four judges, four and five, they introduced us to Deborah and Deborah is a prophetess.
The wife of Lao was judging Israel at that time.
And judges four and five says, and she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Rama and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim and the Children of Israel came up to her for judgment.
I have this vision in my mind of Deborah sitting underneath the tree stately and queenly owning her power, owning her purpose and allowing those who were in need of her purpose to come to her.
Isn’t that a vision? Isn’t that what we all want?
We wanna sit comfortably in our power and our purpose waiting for those who need us to be attracted to us.
But you know, there are some nuances in this story that I think are going to be beneficial for you.
If you’re seeking to live a life full of power and purpose.
The first thing is that she sitting, Deborah is not anxious, she’s not chasing after those who may need her.
She’s not sticking her nose in other people’s situation to determine whether or not they need her to judge it.
She is sitting comfortably in who she is waiting for.
The need to arise for her to utilize the gifts and the talents that are assigned to her name.
So many of us want purpose, but we aren’t comfortable within our own skin.
As a matter of fact, we believe that if I have purpose, then I will be comfortable not recognizing that purpose is not a band aid, it is not a cozy little blanket, it is not a pillow that’s gonna keep you nice and warm and cuddly at night.
Purpose requires everything you have and don’t have.
So before you embark on the journey of purpose, you gotta be comfortable with what you’re starting with.
I wanna talk to you the person who has a weakness, who has a struggle, who has an insecurity that they think purpose will heal.
I wanna let you know this in the most kind, most empathetic way possible.
Purpose will not be your surgeon.
Purpose will be the tool that you use in order to do surgery for other people which means instead of asking for purpose to come and make you whole and for purpose to make you feel better.
We have to ask the deeper question.
And that deeper question is why am I aching so bad for this validation or affirmation or acknowledgement or fame that I think will come with purpose?
How can I be comfortable with who I am now where I am positioned now?
So that when it is time for me to live in my purpose, I don’t abuse the purpose because of my insecurity.
I wanna share some of my notes with you.
Part of the reason why it’s so important for us to find ourselves in a place of comfort when moving into purpose is because purpose is for the long haul.
So OK, let’s do an exercise, right? I want you to think about your life.
I want you to think about your life and I want you to think about the areas of your life that you feel like purpose will somehow heal, it will make you feel more fulfilled and it will make you feel more valuable, it’ll make you feel more worthy.
Now, I want you to consider that purpose is actually the thing that may make you feel more insecure me, finding my purpose, me, finding the thing that I believe God created me to do meant me confronting so many of my insecurities and so many of my anxieties that I still have moments now where I’m like, I don’t know if I can do this.
But before I discover purpose, I was completely fine living in my comfort zone, I was just content as content can be.
But in order for us to go the long haul, we have to know first comfort, comfort teaches us where home is.
Comfort teaches us how to live in a state of contentment.
It helps us to not abuse purpose because we found a way to be comfortable before it.
But from that place of comfort, we are stretched into our purpose because purpose is for the long haul, you need a balance of comfort and confrontation in order to do purpose.
Well, comfort is where we retrieve to. It’s where we, what’s the retreat to comfort is where we retreat to.
When purpose has been taxing, purpose is not supposed to exhaust. Must do 24 7.
Purpose is not supposed to deplete you. You gotta do purpose for the long call.
Deborah said, what I’m not gonna do is sit underneath this sun.
What I’m not gonna do is stand up all day.
If I’m gonna be in purpose, I’m gonna find a way to make sure that I’m comfortable.
You need comfort and confrontation. And so first, let’s master the art of comfort.
Let’s get comfortable where we are and then let us not shrink when it is time for us to confront the fears, inadequate inadequacies and insecurities that make us feel like I can’t be in purpose.
This beautiful dance of comfort, confrontation produces purpose that goes the long haul.
So I never want you to be in a position where you are regretting where you are now or grieving where you are now find comfort in it, find joy, find a way to celebrate it.
And then also when those moments come for you to speak up, when those moments come for you to put out a new idea.
When you have to build that website, when you have to expose your gifts and talents to other people.
Those are the moments where it’s gonna feel like confrontation. I don’t want anyone to see this area of deficiency.
I don’t want anyone to see this area of weakness.
Those are the areas that help you to strengthen your power and purpose.
I love that Kaine had to work through so much to get to a place where she finally found purpose to me that is such a testimony to what we must all go through in order to find ourselves positioned in a place of purpose.
We have moments where it’s scary, but then we’re comforted by those who got us brought into our life for a season.
There’s one more scripture I wanna share with you and this one I think is gonna be very helpful because it just underscores the idea of finding, finding comfort with where you are before you are introduced to.
Why you are. Did you hear that you gotta find comfort with where you are.
You gotta find comfort with who you are before you figure out why you are.
I’m gonna prove it to you in the New Testament. Jesus comes up to Simon, Peter.
Simon Peter is fishing, minding his business and Jesus says to him, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
Now, it seems like a simple sentence. But what if Peter would have been hating being a fisherman?
What if he’s like, I hate fishing. I hate sitting out here.
I hate waiting on something to catch the hook. I hate pulling in the net.
I hate everything about my life because it doesn’t seem meaningful.
He would have missed the bridge that would lead him to purpose.
Jesus had to trust not just in who he was calling Simon Peter to be, but also trust that he could build from who Peter was in that moment because Peter had a healthy consciousness on who he was in that moment.
When Jesus says, I’m gonna make you a fisher of men. He was able to take that next step.
It was still new, it was still foreign. He was still gonna have to become a student again.
But he was equipped with the foundation of knowing I have had comfort in this life before I have found a way to be content with who I am right now.
And if God says I’m gonna take who you are right now and I’m just gonna demonstrate it and, and allow it to be seen in a different area, a different arena, then I’m gonna trust that even with the awkwardness, even with the uncomfortableness that God waste nothing who you are right now.
Wherever you are right now, it’s purposeful. You, my friend are there yet. You’re here.
You’re exactly where you need to be for this moment.
Everything God’s gonna do in your life and through your life, he’s gonna do it with the pieces that you have right now.
So my prayer for you, my hope, my earnest expectation is that she would lean into the power that exists in this moment.
The power that reveals your strength, the power that reveals your insecurities, the power that reveals how God is developing you.
And if I can just tell you one thing, you don’t have to be envious of other people and purpose, you don’t have to be jealous.
You don’t have to feel like you’ve been forgotten. Ok? I I’ve got one more scripture.
I wanna share with you. Ok? It’s in Peter, it’s in Peter two and one.
And it says therefore, lay aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all evil.
Speaking as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby.
If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. I love this part, right?
Because and it just goes on and on. You have to read it to get the full context.
But I love this idea of lang aside, malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all in all evil speaking and becoming as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word.
That means that if I’m envious, if I am hypocritical, if I am deceitful, if I am evil speaking, then there is a part of me that is malnourished when it comes to living a spirit led life.
And if I’m gonna fix that malnourishment, I’m gonna have to become like a babe.
That means I’m gonna have to sit from the word little by little until the envy that is in my life helps me to develop into someone who can be happy for other people who don’t, who doesn’t see other people’s success as my competition or my setback.
Ok. So we’re not gonna be envious. We’re gonna find a way to be comfortable with where we are.
Comfort, doesn’t mean we don’t have dreams. Comfort doesn’t mean that we don’t still see opportunities for growth.
It means that we don’t hate where we are while maximizing where we are at the same time.
Fall in love with your present. This is your purpose. This is the only purpose you have right now.
God’s gonna do the rest and he’s gonna use where you are for the rest. So miss nothing.
I wanna pray with you. God.
I thank you that we have access to power, power that is beyond us.
Power that is greater than us because Lord knows that we need it.
It takes power for us to continue to show up in spaces where we don’t always feel enough.
It takes power for us to show up in spaces where it seems like we’ve reached our peak.
But yet there’s still more in us. God.
My prayer is that for everyone who’s under the sound of my voice, that they would come to a place where they realize that this present moment is full of your glory.
This present moment is meant to be the best version of who they are.
God, help them to be settled here to not be so afraid of losing it or missing it that they realize that this is it.
And if they work now you’ll work out the rest, forgive us God because we’ve been regretting and maybe even talking negatively about where we are now.
That is no longer our portion.
We will be like babes, drinking from the well and milk of faith that tells us all is well, all things work together and I am exactly where I am supposed to be in Jesus name.
I pray amen. Family. I’ve got so many other things I wanna share with you about revolutionary power.
Grab a friend head on over to we TV. Stay on, we TV, and journey with us.
We’ve got power to unfold.