WHAT LIGHTS YOUR FIRE?
by: Laura Sonksen

When you were a child you were probably asked “What do you want to be when you grow up”? We
all had different answers for our childhood hopes. As you got older life took on a course of it’s own. If
you’ve been blessed enough to have someone in your life ask you those insightful questions as a young
adult then chances are your answers may be different than they were as a child. Now maybe you’re a
little more conscious about what stokes your fire. Do you like to cook endlessly? Do you like to party
plan like no other? I have a friend, Jolene, who just laid down a job she loved and did very well in for
several years to pursue something she’s always ‘wanted to do’. She thrives and loves to coordinate
weddings and, as a very small part of her prior job, did so beautifully and with ease, as it appeared.
She stuck her neck out and pursued her dream choice of work but on an executive level and with much
higher pay and benefits…and she landed it! She now gets to do what she’s always dreamed of doing.

Eric Liddell, OLYMPIC RUNNER, (in the film Chariots of Fire) once said “I believe God made me for a
purpose, but he also made me fast, and when I run, I feel God’s pleasure.”

In case you haven’t probed that childhood question as an adult, try finishing these sentences:

1. I feel good about myself when I am…Where? Doing what? Feeling what?
2. I feel invigorated when I am…Where? Doing what? Feeling what?
3. I feel inspired when I am...Where? Doing what? Feeling what?
4. I feel creative when I am… Where? Doing what? Feeling what?
5. I feel powerful when I am…Where? Doing what? Feeling what?

In answering these, you’ll learn more about who you are. They help stoke a little fire and as you know,
fire lights up a dark night for miles around. If you are feeling a bit in the dark about your life or work,
what did you learn about yourself in your answers? The answers can help lead you to your designed
purpose. We go out and get a ‘job’ for incomes sake, which is needed. But sometimes the job absorbs so
much of ourselves that it prohibits us from ever discovering what we were actually designed for and we
are never at our best until we find our way to our purpose.

Os Guiness once said, “Somehow we human beings are never happier than when we are expressing the
deepest gifts that are truly us.”

Don’t be afraid to answer honestly. Your uniqueness gives you a platform, own it, harness it and use it.
When you are moving in your own ability and gift, you will inspire others and give others permission to
do the same. You have permission… Permission to dream…Permission to wander outside the boundaries
of your mind.