Ok, so I love that we got some questions from the Writer’s Block post. We’ll address them over the next few days. First, this question from Angela:

“There are lots of desires and things I’d like to do. I know the deepest desire, the one I most want to fulfill is being a blessing to people, especially in the area of helping. Do you just pursue the more diverse desires (i.e. for me – volleyball, photography, horses) with trust that He will bring people along your path that you can be a blessing to? Or do you specifically hone those gifts to bless people in a very specific, targeted way? I have lots of desires, and pursue them as best I can, teaching myself to improve and getting to know and bless people along the way as I know how but I’m wondering if there’s a better way…“

So just a few thoughts. I like that you’re coming from the perspective of someone with a lot things that they want to do. Some people get stuck in the mode of not knowing themselves and they don’t know what they want to do. That’s a harder problem to solve. But when you have a lot of things that you want to do it can be confusing too. Your question is, do I pursue my interests and trust that I’ll have opportunities to bless people or do I focus my interests and pursue them in a way that I only do them if it blesses other people? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but here’s how I’d approach what I hear you saying. Let’s call your “deepest desire”, your purpose. And so your purpose is wanting to help other people. That’s a great purpose. A person’s purpose is fulfilled through them, but it’s always for others. I really believe that. And over time, that purpose will become more clear. The way that I’ve seen that people fulfill their purpose is through vision. Vision is the path we chart to enable us to fulfill our purpose and it’s composed of all of those little, diverse desires that are inside of you. So if we’ve defined your purpose, then it’s likely that all of those other interests are part of your vision. They are the things that are inside of you to help you fulfill your purpose. So understanding the subtle difference and intimate relationship between vision and purpose is really important. So if those interests (your vision) are in you to help you fulfill your purpose, then the next logical question is “which interest do I pursue? or how do I order my vision?”

My suggestion would be to pursue the interest that activates the most other things in your life. Each one of your interests (pieces of your vision) is directly connected to your purpose. But it’s really likely that one of your interests will do more to enable you other interests and begin to have a more immediate impact on your purpose. This is clearly for example sake, but let’s use one of your interests. You could pursue a photography business and that might more quickly do more to enable you (through time, relationships, and money) to be able to help others (either directly through that business or through the means that business would provide). So I think you have to focus on the one that has the most likelihood of activating or enabling the other interests that you have. If you can’t readily identify one thing, then pick one and just start focusing on it. By the way, that doesn’t mean you ignore all of the other interests, it just means that one of them gets more attention than the others in the short term.

To specifically answer your question of whether to hone your interests to bless people or to pursue your interests and trust that you’ll come across people to bless, I’d say this. If you pursue your vision while always remembering your purpose, that both things will be true. You’ll come across people to bless, but also your very interests will be a blessing to others.

Hopefully that makes sense.

p.s. – in response to your 2nd question, Twitter went away to free up some space on the blog and because I didn’t feel like I was keeping up with it. I’m going to redesign The Faction and we’ll bring it back and I’ll try and keep twittering.