Holy. Human. Honest!

What Is The Purpose?: Embracing Service and Resisting Selfish Ambition

• Jazmyn Nichols • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Discovering our true purpose stems from the heartfelt quest to serve others, not just personal ambition. In this episode, we discuss the significance of identifying your unique gifts and using that knowledge to enrich the lives of those around you. 

• Searching for purpose in a world focused on ambition 
• Understanding the connection between service and fulfillment 
• Personal narratives on recognizing and utilizing talents 
• The pursuit of purpose evolves, yet remains rooted in service 
• Inspirational stories illustrating joy found in service 
• Wrapping up with hope and scriptural reflections 
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Jazmyn:

Hello, hello, hello and welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Jazmyn B Nichols with the Holy Human Honest Podcast. Now listen, you guys. I already told y'all that, look, I'm not trying to reach for perfection. This year. It is a year of just do it, even if it is not perfect, because your girl has definitely struggled with perfectionism in the past. So, with that being said, I am recording tonight. I am home at my house, my kids are still up, so, look, if y'all hear a couple pitter patters in the background, all kinds of things, just bear with me. So today I'm going to get right into it.

Jazmyn:

Do you know your purpose? Do you know what you were put on this earth to do? Do you know what you really want to get out of life? I've definitely had people in my life tell me before I don't know what my purpose is, because, for me, living life on purpose is a big deal to me. What is my purpose? What is my purpose?

Jazmyn:

And I think a lot of times when people are wondering what their purpose is, they're thinking about what is it, that exact thing that I'm supposed to be doing? What is my calling? What is my gift? What is my talent? But before we look at those things we really have to first look at. What are we here to do collectively, as human beings? What are we here to do with one another, for one another? What is it all about?

Jazmyn:

Well, I think about the scripture, when Jesus talks about how Jesus came to serve and not to be served. That's why we're here, and I know that this can sound super simple, like well, that's too easy, that's too simple, and what do you mean? I'm just here to serve, are you know? Isn't there something more to life? But y'all, really, if you look at the people in the world that have learned to thrive and I mean really, really thrive Not just people that have a lot of stuff or people that you know struck, rich and those types of things, but people that are really striving inside and outside, those people are usually some of the biggest servants. They are the biggest givers. They also know how to have boundaries, but they have such capacity that even their boundaries still seem to find ways to serve others and not for them to just be served.

Jazmyn:

Jesus came to serve and not be served. So if you want to figure out what your purpose is, I ask you first what is your service? What is your service and usually, if you want to know what your service is, you look at what are your gifts, what are your talents. Let me quit saying you, you, you, we, we look at what are our gifts, what are our talents, what are our passions. I know that I'm put on this earth to serve and I'm put on this earth for love and light and God and goodness to flow through my life and find ways to serve and to share all that with the people that are here. That is what Jesus did, and he was indiscriminate. He shared what was inside of him with anybody that was willing to receive, anybody that was willing to believe what he had to offer. And we were called to do the same thing. What is my service?

Jazmyn:

There's a lot of things, y'all, that I'm not good at. Okay, I remember it was somebody once in my life that said Jasmine, it seems like you're good at everything and I'm like man, there's so many things that I'm not good at. The things that I'm not good at. That list is way longer than the list of things that I am good at. But my thing is that I just choose to throw myself completely into things that I'm really good at. Like who wants to just sit around doing stuff and being frustrated, but I'm I like to really throw myself into whatever it is that I'm doing, and so, for me, I'm just good with words. I'm good with words Now. I ain't gonna lie y'all. I've had to learn over the years how to be tactful sometimes, but words are my thing. So, whether it's songwriting, whether it's poetry, whether it is an encouraging word or just knowing the right thing to say in a crisis I actually worked for a crisis hotline before. I'm good at that and I found ways to serve through those words. So, whether it's doing spoken word poetry at an event or writing a song that I hope will meet people where they are in a dark place, but somehow be able to pull them back into light and into hope, that's just my purpose and I let that flow through me in so many ways, I think in other times.

Jazmyn:

Why it's hard for people to figure out their purpose is because a lot of times, people don't really know, want to know what their purpose is. I think sometimes we might want to know what can I do to get rich? What can I do to get wealthy? What can I do to hit it big? What can I do, to get famous, and if that is the thing that is pushing you and driving you to to know why you're created or what your purpose really is, if what you're looking for and the questions that you're asking have nothing to do with serving people and serving God, I don't think that we're going to figure it out. Your purpose is usually the thing that you could do, even if you never made a dime from it or if nobody ever found out about it. It's just the thing that makes you come alive, like I love.

Jazmyn:

I love, love, love when I lead worship and I'm serving people and I'm serving my community by leading us into a, the tangible presence of God, the manifest glory of God. God is all us. But it's just something about corporate worship when you could just feel the gravity and the heaviness and the weightiness and the lightest, best way of God's goodness and to worship him in the beauty of his holiness. It is just amazing and I find it such a privilege to do that and I'll do it for free. I'll do it for free. God rewards me and it's really okay. It really is.

Jazmyn:

There's been times when people have blessed me with something, but I don't do it for that those things might come, but I do it so that I can serve God's people. I love to get to see God's people be able to just experience the presence of God when all the things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of God's glory and grace. That is my service to my community, piece of it, a part of it, doing this podcast and hopefully encouraging and serving somebody by letting you know you're not alone. I didn't figure these things out overnight. Been a long time in prayer and just in life and talking with God and talking to people and listening and getting it wrong and having vain ambitions and wanting to self-promote in ways that is not glorifying to God at all but is trying to glorify me and figure things out and give me a stake in this and a stake in that, in position and it's all just so stupid Vanity. So I've had to fall a lot of times before I came to this point of just.

Jazmyn:

It's so simple. If you want to know your purpose, ask yourself what is my service? Ask yourself, do I want to serve? And just be honest, because it's easy to feel like we've served so much. I think a lot of times we can find ourselves having done so much service and it wasn't really what I don't know. It didn't. It didn't. It didn't come from a place of life, it didn't come from a place of flow, you know. And so I think sometimes, even when people think of service, I think immediately, if you're burnt out and you hear the word service, it could almost be a trigger. You know what, what I mean. But when you lock in on your purpose, you will find that in your endeavor to serve other people and to serve with God and alongside God and his purpose in the earth, you'll find that you get filled up as well, because as you are allowing things to flow out of you, god is pouring into you. That's when you know you've really stepped into purpose. It's almost like a two separate tubes that just kind of come together and everything that God has already endowed you with, everything that God is continually pouring inside of you, everything that you've already come with into this earth, it is just flowing through and as you give it out and make space for more, god pours in the more. And it is beautiful and it is euphoric and it is amazing, even if sometimes it can feel hard, even if sometimes your flesh might get tired, but it can be tricky, especially if we haven't really um looked at our motives. Why do you want to know your purpose again? Is it about? Is it about getting wealthy, or is it about leading somebody else into a wealthy place? So what is your service and what are you good at? What gives you joy just by doing it? And, it's amazing, the doors that God can open just when we're doing that thing that we're called to do.

Jazmyn:

Man, I love watching this lady on YouTube. Her name is Ari Katerina and she cleans homes, and she cleans homes for free. She would literally she's just like I love to clean, I love to clean y'all. She will open up a refrigerator that has like roaches and maggots and all kind of stuff inside of it and she'll be like oh my goodness, this is so beautiful, this is just delicious. Because she just thinks I, I don't know, the more messy something is, the more amazing it is to clean. She just I don't know, that's our thing. She loves to clean and so, just by her videoing herself cleaning people's places, she even started to just do it for free because she got so much sponsorship from all these different companies. Companies were flying her around the world just because she locked in with what can I do to serve people that coincides and aligns with the things that I love to do and I'm actually really good at.

Jazmyn:

God didn't create us to just find our purpose and do stuff that we really don't like to do, or serve people doing things that become begrudging. No, how can you be a cheerful giver if you're not doing something that makes you cheerful? I'm not saying that all the time and purpose things are going to be easy and cheery. There's a lot of things that sometimes come with service that we don't like. Like the things that I do to serve other people. It comes with a lot of admin work, and I do not like admin work, but the joy and knowing the product is going to be on the other side of that, I don't know. It just gives me the grace and the ability to kind of get through it. So I'm not saying it's always going to be easy, but it's going to be absolutely worth it and it's going to be something that brings us joy as well. All right, so what is your service? Think about that. What is your service? What is the thing that you're really really good at that, even if you didn't get paid. It's just something that brings you so much joy and it could be anything.

Jazmyn:

Like I said, this lady, her thing, the thing that she loves to do, is to clean and to encourage people. Let's talk about that as well. Always remember that your purpose is to serve. When you want to know your purpose, ask yourself what is your service? So even with her, she is finding purpose in cleaning right now, but really her purpose is to serve. She's just doing it through cleaning.

Jazmyn:

What if something happens one day and there's somebody out there? They are locked into their purpose and maybe say their purpose they're finding purpose in dog walking, like they're, just like. I just want to be the best dog walker in the world. I want to serve people by doing this. This is awesome. And something happens and they can't do dog walking anymore. Are they left without purpose? Absolutely not. Maybe there's something that you really used to find purpose in and then something happened and you can't find purpose in that thing anymore and you feel lost and you just feel like, oh my gosh, what is my purpose? What does it mean in life? Why am I here? You're here to serve. So find a different way to do it. There has to be something.

Jazmyn:

It is amazing how we really begin to live life when we stop living it for ourselves and live it for the good of others and for the glory of God. And that sounds so contrary to the world that we live in today. But that's kingdom, that is what it means to be holy. The life set apart, living it unto God, that's what that holy part means. But then our human nature, which y'all I love. Human nature, it is the most beautiful, magnificent, messy, brutal thing there is. But it is just incredible to me, the human experience, and I just feel so honored to get, to have been able to come into this earth and be a human being. And I know that that sounds so crazy, because this world is wild and wicked and tumultuous and all kinds of things happen and there's grief and there's sadness and there's pain, but the joy and the richness of it all that produces so much endurance and depth and character. I'm just like. I'm so thankful that God let me do this, I get to do this. How cool, I'm so happy, it's such a rich experience. But the honest part in that is that it's hard. It's hard marrying that call to holiness and a life set apart unto God with this flesh that we battle and the survival instincts that we have as human beings, and the things that fight for our attention and the things that come to distract us, and the vain, conceited ways that we could have and just I don't know. The wickedness of our own hearts is hard, but God is good and God is able, and I'm thankful for that.

Jazmyn:

I want to wrap up with the scripture that I read this morning. It's a scripture out of the book of Jude. Jude is absolutely one of my favorite books and one of the last scriptures, jude 1,. There's only one chapter of Jude, so the whole thing is one Jude 1, verse 24. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy. To God, our savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen, whoo, that is a good scripture. It says now to him who was able to keep you from stumbling. To him who was able to keep you, me, us, from stumbling.

Jazmyn:

I love that he is able to keep us from stumbling.

Jazmyn:

He is.

Jazmyn:

He's able to do it. He's able to do it. Now, sometimes we try to step out of line. But what I love about God's word as well. It says that a righteous man falls several times and gets back up, but God is able to keep us from stumbling in this pursuit of um, in this pursuit of him, in this pursuit of wanting to live a life set apart, or we also walk in our divine humanity that God has endowed us with. It's a beautiful thing to be honest about the fact that it's not always easy, but with God, all things are possible, you guys.

Jazmyn:

So I just wanted to share that today. I hope this encourages somebody. Again, if you're looking for your purpose, ask what is my service, how can I serve other people, and what is the thing, what is the way that I would love to do that that also brings me joy. Okay, god is good. Please go ahead and follow this podcast, you guys. Any way that you can interact with this page, please do. I would love for this podcast to be able to get out to more people. Please share this with somebody if you think that it would encourage them. And, yeah, there also might be a give or donate button at some somewhere on whatever platform you're looking at. Um, if there is, please feel free to give to this channel. It helps anything that we're trying to do. Um, yeah, until next time again Jazmyn B. Nichols. This is with the holy human honest podcast. Have a great rest of your day. Bye, thank you.