SECTION 2: Purpose is Inherent and Innate
You are endowed with inherent qualities and characteristics that form an integral part of your natural and personal identity from the moment of your conception. These intrinsic attributes serve as a guidepost, leading you to your life's purpose. These characteristics are natural and innate. They are central to the innermost and intimate parts of you that are anchored in your purpose.
Nature is inherent in purpose. Your inherent abilities refer to the qualities that are naturally a part of you, even if they have to develop over time. This means the blueprint or foundation of these traits always existed in you even if you have to spend time further developing them. When your Creator designed you, all the necessary abilities and functions for performing and fulfilling your predestined assignment were built right in. Remember, purpose never requires something that natural abilities do not provide for.
The beauty in this is that your purpose is connected to what you naturally enjoy doing. When you are executing your purpose you feel happy, complete and at peace. What you love and desire to do is usually a significant part of what you were born to do. More explicitly said, you have everything you need to be who you are! What you are can never be changed. Remember, you may take it to the grave, suffocate it or hinder it but it is forever who and what you are.
Understanding the Purpose for Your Life
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Nature is inherently linked to purpose. When you were created, all the natural abilities necessary to perform and fulfill your predetermined purpose were embedded within you. Remember, your purpose will never demand more than your natural abilities can provide. Your purpose aligns with what you naturally enjoy, those activities that make you feel happy, complete, and at peace. Typically, what you love and desire to do is precisely what you were born to do. You already possess everything required to become who you were designed to be—or more precisely, to be who you truly are!
It is important to get to the crux of the unique elements of who you are when considering your natural talents. Many have been misguided and derailed from their purpose by others, family members, friends or even just messaging from media and society at large stereotyping their nature, particularly physical nature, to impose inaccuracies about their purpose.
For example, many individuals, especially black males, who are tall are imposed with messaging from the outside world that they are destined to be basketball stars. This isn’t to say that they aren’t, but revealing the true nature of a being is much more than skin deep and far more layered than a few physical or identity markers. Similarly, many individuals who are naturally academically inclined or gifted are told they should be doctors but what about all the other countless professions that require high academic intelligence. Moreover, what about the other facets of a profession in medicine that require more than just a natural knack for learning, what about discipline, bedside manner, compassion and a gift of healing?
A holistic consideration of your abilities, gifts and passions is essential to understanding your purpose. Think of how these factors interact, connect and influence each other to create the full picture of your being.