Live Your Purpose: A Conversation With Author Keith Ogelsby

LISTEN TO EPISODE 31 HERE.

Have you ever wondered what it truly looks like to live out your God-given purpose? 

Maybe you've not yet stepped into your calling. Maybe you don't know what your calling is or how to get there. To help us unpack this incredible concept of identifying and stepping into our purpose, we invited a guest on the podcast who has studied this, written about it, and is speaking regularly about this: author Keith Oglesby. 

Keith began the conversation by emphasizing that questions of purpose are part of the human condition. 

What is our purpose? What were we designed for? Is there more? Why are we here? Why are we in this situation? Why are we in this family?

Purpose is a universal question that most people grapple with. When we look to God's Word, we see that  God created all things with a purpose. In Genesis, He's very purposeful in how He laid out creation and we are a part. We're the crowning jewel of that creation. He created us for purpose. When you go back just to the very origin, the Genesis of who we are, we were created by God in His image for purpose. Every single human is created in the image of God.

Keith then walked us through his 3-step model for identifying our purpose.

A 3-Step Model for Identifying Your Purpose

Step 1: Passion 

God supernaturally gives us a desire to be a part of something greater. Passion drives people to stay up late at night. Passion is what, when you're going somewhere, you drive past your exit because you're lost in what you're passionate about. People are passionate about music. People are passionate about under-resourced areas, clean drinking water in a third world country, trafficking of human beings. You can be passionate about music. You can be passionate about athletics.

Passion is something that drives you, motivates you, gives you time, and gives you grit.

Step 2: Spiritual Gift 

God, in His incredible generosity, gives every single one of us a spiritual gift.

Spiritual gifts are something that come naturally to you. You don't have to learn it, you don't have to focus on it. It's something that you can just do well. You do it out of the joy and your passion drives it. Giftedness is how your passion is actually executed. If you could think about passion as your motor, your spiritual gift is the steering wheel that steers your passion in the lane, in the group, and with the people group that you're called to.

Examples of spiritual gifts include things  like teaching, administration, compassion, serving, counseling, and leading.

Step 3: Need

There are needs all around us. In our human condition, God designed us to have two types of needs: external and internal. Our deepest internal need is the need to belong. It's the deepest need we have to feel loved, to belong to a family, to belong to a community, to be accepted, to be invited, to be validated, to be valued, to be noticed.

What need do you feel most passionate about? How are you meeting the external or internal needs of others? What is the greatest need that you have been designed and trusted with a spiritual gift and passion to be a part of the solution?

When you are doing all three of those interconnected elements because God endowed them and God created them and He's entrusted them to you... this is called "stewardship." The Bible says we're vapor, we're mist, we're here today,  and we're gone tomorrow. We only have about 80 or 90 years to reflect God's glory, to impact others, to grow the kingdom, and help people discover purpose.