1/7/26 - 2128: The Formula for Living with Purpose

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, 13 years of covering the Faith and Work movement.

Martha: We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to release the testimonies of workplace believers who have learned to unleash their vocational and cultural contributions for the flourishing of the world. What can that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Do you have purpose in your life? Where does the purpose come from? How does that purpose play out in your daily job? How do you find out what your purpose is and how does our understanding of our purpose help the world around us to flourish?

Our guest today is Dr. Jessica Rimmer, who's just released a book called The Purpose Formula. This is a power packed, hard hitting book focused on helping you to unleash your understanding of your purpose so that God can use you more effectively. Jessica Rimmer, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Jessica Rimmer: Thank you. So good to see you both.

Jim: Alright, so Jessica, you open your book by saying, God proclaimed that human beings had inherent value because of what he had done, not because of what they had done. Why is this understanding so important to our conversation today and the pursuit of purpose?

Jessica Rimmer: So interestingly, you're referring to the preface of the book, and I wrote that as the very last thing. I had been working on the book and I was visiting with my office neighbor about the book and he was giving me feedback and I had this in the middle of the night insight. I was like, oh, one more thing. I think it's really important for people to know that your purpose, that's a gift that God gives you.

It's something that he flows through you to other people. You get the participatory joy of having a purpose, but even if you never do anything, because God made you and he has declared you to be valuable, you, your identity is secure. And so the reason that I wanted to put that in the very beginning of the book - your purpose is not your identity and your purpose is not your job; those are the two points that I make very first thing. It's something you bring to your job, but it's not your job - it's because I think that if we put pressure on purpose to tell us that we're okay, then we don't actually get the joy of living it out fully. We're asking something from it that it's not supposed to give.

So I think we have to just sit with the knowledge that we are loved and we are chosen, we are dearly loved, as the scriptures say, and that sets us free to live our lives with purpose.

Jim: So you're saying the purpose doesn't give us life, but God gives us life. So we can experience life in its fullest and then through that comes naturally purpose that he has assigned to us. It has nothing to do with us. The purpose that really matters comes from God.

Jessica Rimmer: That's right.

Martha: This is such a interesting conversation because most people, beginning of the year, they're looking at themselves and going, okay, what am I gonna do this year? What am I gonna accomplish? And you're saying, okay, we, we have this focus in the wrong spot. And I love that we're gonna dig into that a little bit more. So one of the things that we talk about a lot on iRetire4Him is how often our purpose is tied to our work and that we get our identity from that.

And it's actually threatened when we retire because we're like, now what? Who am I gonna be? What is my purpose? So you state that if we fail in our work, it could also threaten our purpose. So if purpose isn't tied to the work, then what is it really tied to?

Jessica Rimmer: So this is really why I think it's important for us to understand that our purpose is not our job. It's how we do what we do. So our purpose is something that lives above everything that we do. It's the type of friend that we are, the type of mom that we are. It's the type of worker that we are. And when we understand that God is purposefully working through us, he has the strategic plan.

I'm very type A, so I don't mind that God is a planner, but it's his plan. And so I get to play a part in that plan. And so the various jobs that I have, those are what my friend Kat Armstrong would refer to as, those are my assignments. So the purpose of the military is above the deployment assignment of each individual mission.

And so our jobs are that way. I served that university, I served that church, I served that business for those seasons of time. Those were assignments, but above it was the purpose for which God has deployed me onto the planet. And so for me, as you guys know, I talk about my purpose being binding up broken hearts and setting people free.

That's not a particular job description that you could find in any business or any, maybe you could find it in a church ministry description somewhere, but it's the way that I approach life and it is the way I show up at work. So it's not something that, oh, I find my purpose outside of work. I hear people say that. Oh I volunteer with the homeless and that gives me a lot of purpose. That's awesome. I just think that there's a way to find it inside of your work as well, but you bring it. The job doesn't give it back to you.

Jim: But so many believers have been told that if they really want their life to count, they need to quit their job and go to work in a church, which is where they get the idea that their purpose is found in their volunteer work and not in their everyday work.

And a lot of that is, it's just false theology that's presented or fermented or perpetuated within the local church. And that's why we're trying to turn it right side up. That's why you need to get a copy of Jessica's latest book, The Purpose Formula. If you're watching this out here on YouTube, you can see a copy of the book.

Jessica, I'm gonna put you on the spot right now. Let's just say somebody's listening today and they're like, I wanna get a copy of that book. Are you willing to give away a copy of your book to our audience today?

Jessica Rimmer: Absolutely. I would give away five.

Jim: Oh!

Jessica Rimmer: If five people are interested, you can send me their addresses. I will mail them books.

Jim: Perfect. If you would like to get a copy of Jessica's brand new book, The Purpose Formula, just send me an email Jim at I work for him.com. Jim, at. I work the number four him.com, or you can also call our 800 number, which is not an 800 number anymore. It's an 8 6 6 number, 8 6 6 7 1 3 96 75, 8 6 6 7 1 3, 96 75.

Martha: And 96 75 spells the word work. So it's easy to remember, but I'll put it in the show notes.

I wanna hang on to that thought as we go through this, that it's the way we go to - you said it way more succinctly, but you know this, the overall arching why we do what we do and how we bring it to our work. I was thinking about how Jim's mom was that person who, no matter where she was - sitting on a airplane, sitting at the doctor's office, people would pour out their heart to her.

There was something that God created in her that attracted people to her. And so she already was bringing that in her life. But then she went and got training and got her master's in Christian counseling. I think of that because she was carrying that already. She didn't have to go get her master's in order to do that work. It gave her an office and an ability to do it differently, but she was carrying that with her. And I think a lot of people don't necessarily see that in their day. So I'm excited to talk about this a little bit more.

Jessica, did you ever struggle knowing what your purpose was?

Jessica Rimmer: Yes. There was a distinct point in time where I could articulate my purpose and I recognize now how fortunate I was to be so young when I was able to articulate that. But I talk about purpose as design, desires, and disappointment. It's that third bucket, disappointment, that I think has been so surprising to people to think back about how God has used disappointments to shape them.

It was through a season - I tell this story in the book - it was through a season of really deep disappointment and heartache in my own life. I know what it feels like to be broken hearted. And so that, I would say, is the that journey of pain was the North Star to really help me declare this is my purpose and this is what it looks like for me to live my life on purpose.

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Martha: Alright, Jessica, so tell us the actual purpose formula. You alluded to it a little bit earlier, but tell us that actual formula. People went to math class, they had formulas they had to memorize. Tell us about this one.

Jessica Rimmer: I talk about it as purpose equals design plus desires plus disappointments times the vision for impact, which is really, and when you get to that section of the book, I talked about that as a surrendered vision for impact. You really have to allow God to be the one to decide. What is the vision? How big is it? I think when we chase impact, we lose purpose.

Jim: Is that because it gets self-centered then when we chase impact, does it become more self-focused? Is that why you think that is?

Jessica Rimmer: I think so. And I think I can be just as oriented that way as anybody else. I remember the day I was throwing the party for this book launch, I had a friend come and he was like, how does it feel? And I was like, it feels like nothing. And he was like, what do you mean? And I said, I don't think the book has made a difference yet.

So like I am easily tempted to be like, man, it doesn't matter and I can't celebrate until I see an impact. But we all know, as people who are serving an eternal, invisible God, that he is doing things, he is doing things that we cannot see. And so I think that when we chase impact we go into our human sight and we lose sight of the fact that God is at work in ways that we can't possibly understand or imagine.

What is it? He does exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. And so even chasing impact, we are maybe Ill-equipped to chase the impact that God would have if we would trust him. And so I think we go out of faith when we go after the human impact as our primary metric for success.

Jim: So purpose = design + desires + disappointments x by God's vision for impact.

It's just, there's so much, which is why you gotta read the book because it just peels back the layers a little bit of time. And some of 'em are painful layers too when you really look at it, because a lot of us, you shared some painful stories right in the book, which was, I love that, when an author can get transparent.

One of the things, Jessica, that we talk about all the time it is flourishing, because in the garden, Adam and Eve had mental flourishing, had physical flourishing, and spiritual flourishing, and when they sinned, they broke all of that. And Jesus said he came to restore all things, all that was lost in the garden. So flourishing is what God wants us to. It's what Jesus talked about, that living life to its fullest, abundant life. How are purpose or understanding our purpose and flourishing tied together as you see it?

Jessica Rimmer: Sure. I think that really is when Jesus says, I have come that you might have life and you might have it to the full, right before that, he says the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And so I think that God ties purpose to flourishing himself by saying I've come with something unique for you that you know is in your DNA.

We know in the Psalms, he has knit us together in our mother's womb, that he has numbered the days of our lives. And so I think when we are tuned in to the way that God has made us and the way that he desires to see our lives lived in glorious display of him and his creative abilities, when we understand that, we are fully alive. And that's the promise. That's what we're supposed to be experiencing. And I think it's why we're so disappointed and why we're so apt to go, man, this is all there is. Because we know that there's something that God has for us. We know we're supposed to be flourishing.

There's like a remnant of the garden in our minds. And it's why we get so disappointed when life isn't what it could be. When God is there to redeem our disappointments and to make them purposeful and to make them beautiful and to switch it all out. But we look at life and the enemy is at work stealing, killing, destroying.

And we're like, yep, that's about right. Life is life. And it's ah, Jesus promised us something different and something more. And that is a life lived on purpose, flourishing as in the garden, but on earth.

Martha: We have a church in our little town that has a marquee right on the highway, and they don't change it. I really am glad that they don't, because it's a constant reminder to me because it says, " God makes messages out of messes and mistakes." And that's part of that learning process. There are things that come into our life that we can learn from to become more like him. And it's a constant reminder for me 'cause I'm like, okay, today is a messy day, whatever it is. But I still have a purpose to do and I just see how that all fits together, and I appreciate the constant reminder out there on that church sign.

Jim: It is, and it's so hard, Jessica, to stay on track, to not follow the world's ways because the world says that our purpose comes from what we do and what we accomplish, our purpose comes from - it's tangible stuff. But really that's not it. God really brings our purpose. It's that emptiness we're always constantly trying to fill. People are constantly trying to fill the emptiness in their souls.

Martha: Absolutely. Okay, so if I understand this correctly, when we are living out our purpose, when we understand our purpose and we execute that, then everyone around us benefits from it, right?

Jessica Rimmer: That's right. Your purpose is not for you. It flows through you. And so it is fundamentally going to compel us toward other people. That doesn't mean that you have to be an extrovert to live a life of purpose. This is really a message for every personality type. It's going to fundamentally tie us toward, tie us into the community that we are around. Purpose is something that happens on the other side of us when we are fully alive.

Jim: Wait, say that again. Say that again.

Martha: Purpose is something that happens on the other side of us when we're fully alive. Is that what you said?

Jessica Rimmer: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you know, you guys know this, but one of the questions we ask in the work that we do is, what's it like on the other side of me? And it's a question of self-awareness. Am I paying attention? What's it like on the other side of me? And so when we are really living out our purpose, and we know our superpowers and we understand the way that God is compelling our hearts and we're allowing him to heal up our broken heartedness and we're like living dynamically with Jesus in that way, on the other side of that, people can't help but reap the benefits of that overflow, of that purpose.

Jim: It's like becoming a 100x leader. Just, if you become a hundred percent, then you can multiply yourself. I just, I love that. If you wanna find out more, you can go on to online at giant.tv. You can find out more about becoming a 100x leader or get that book. What a great book by some friends of Jessica's. Okay, go ahead.

Martha: That's right. All right, so you know, I love that we're having this conversation at the beginning of the new year and I know a lot of people either love or hate looking at the new year and what God has in store for them. You shouldn't hate that though. You should anticipate what God is gonna do.

But speaking of getting things right and doing things in the new year, to start off on the right foot, I just wanna encourage our listeners to seek God's will. Ask him where you should spend your time and see if he is leading you to join us at any of the faith and work events that we're gonna be participating in in 2026. They're all listed on our events page at iWork4Him.com/events, and I hope to see you there.

Jim: That's right. April, the US Christian Chamber event and in June, the Faith and Work Summit in Cincinnati.

Jessica, one of the things - I'm a little older than you, but one of the things I saw throughout your book, you did a really good job of catching this, is that purpose hardly ever raises somebody to a place of prominence, but often puts 'em in a place of great service. Why do you think the understanding of our purpose makes it so that it's not about us?

Jessica Rimmer: That is such a good question, Jim, and I'm sure you sent that to me ahead of time, but you've stumped me a little bit. Will you say the question one more time?

Jim: Why do you think understanding our purpose makes it so that our position is not about us?

Jessica Rimmer: Yeah, that's so interesting. I think it's because we really do live in the upside down kingdom. And as much as the world would want to create an exaltation gospel, those of us who are believers, we know that the direction of true greatness is downward. And I was just listening to a sermon last week about that, of the disciples had spent so much time with Jesus and they still ask the question, which of us is gonna be - can we sit on your right and left? Which of us is gonna be the greatest?

And so like that whole conversation about being great, it's very easy to get caught up in it, regardless of how close you are to Jesus. And so I think that like experience changes belief. And so when we experience freedom, when we experience freedom, then we believe that's the worthy path to pursue.

And so I think that purpose gives us this experience of oh my gosh, that's the real life I was looking for. I thought that it was at the top of this ladder, but in fact - and listen, the answer to your purpose isn't quit your high power job and go low. It's in the interior space posture of our heart. Are we surrendered? Are we bowed? Are we serving? And have we said, the greatest among us will serve?

And so I think this is why servant leadership as a whole conversation caught fire, is people, regardless of their relationship to faith, they experienced true freedom. And then it began to change their beliefs and thereby their behavior. So experience, belief, behavior, right? That's actually the direction it goes. This is why we have to experience God, really, that we can't just convince ourselves in our mind. We have to experience him to hold fast to our beliefs so that our behavior will outflow. And so that's a very complicated answer to your question, but I think that's maybe an answer.

Jim: But it's so true because what you just, you said in the middle of all that "experience true freedom." You can't experience true freedom unless you're serving others. Because if you think it's all about you, you're not gonna be free. You're gonna be enslaved to that mentality, and that's why this book on purpose is so powerful, because it's not about you. If you're going to follow Jesus, your purpose is gonna never be about you. It's gonna be about what he has and the designs he has for bringing the kingdom to the earth and then it's not about you, which is really a concept that we don't see that lived out a lot.

You, the three of us, have met leaders who don't get this, and we've met leaders that do get this, leaders that truly are transforming organizations, communities that they operate within, because they understand it's not about them. They're just fulfilling the purpose that God gave them to fulfill. And then we've met other leaders who are like, it's all about them. And everybody around them can't stand being around them, but they wanna ride the money train all the way up. It's about the money. It's not about the impact it's made. I think it's so important to recognize the enemy's hand in this. Jessica, why do you think the enemy does not want us to discover and live out our purpose?

Jessica Rimmer: I think you all would understand this uniquely. And so anybody who maybe hasn't really experienced freedom in Christ, I would hope they're listening to this. Once you experience Jesus and you experience the zest in your soul, the joy in your soul, when you experience, oh wow, God is using me. God is using me, and this is in your regular normal job, doing your job well, you know your work as worship.

When you see and you're tuned into that, like there is no deeper sense of satisfaction than to know the God of the universe used me to help that person, to change their day, to change their world, to change their business strategy, whatever your job is. And I think the enemy is against it because he wants us addicted to false highs. He wants us going for the counterfeit and knows that if we live out our God-given purpose, and if we're totally convinced he doesn't have any power over our lives, he doesn't have any power over the impact that we can make on the planet when we are fully surrendered to Jesus.

Martha: So good. And again, I just wanna remind everybody, we're just touching the surface here, but Jessica has offered to give away up to five copies of her book. If you will just email us, I'll put the email in the show notes, but just Martha at iWork4Him.com and we'll make sure that you get that copy so you can start reading it or support her, go out and buy it directly.

But Jessica, Jim mentioned earlier that you're very transparent in the book about your own journey and your struggles with understanding your purpose, especially in light of appreciating what you said: your design. Unbearing your desires, and tackling your disappointments. So what is your purpose, Dr. Jessica Rimmer?

Jessica Rimmer: So I talk about it like this. My purpose is to bind up broken hearts and to set people free. And even as I've been doing this, I sense that God is stirring me to maybe add something in the language, but I've been talking about that purpose since I was a junior in college. And that was maybe the first time that I saw God really take my brokenheartedness, heal it, and then really allow my life to matter for the sake of other people.

And my first kind of world of work was college students. And so man, I got a lot of joy helping students figure out how to live wholeheartedly and how to be free in who they are in Christ, and find their pathway into the workforce. And now God has me doing that in the marketplace, working with business leaders, and it doesn't always look like, that sounds like I'm sitting with people who are crying. That's not the case. When we think about setting people free, it can be setting them free through clarity, helping them find a pathway forward when they've got a really sticky executive team or they can't figure out what the pathway to the future looks like in their business.

When you get that light bulb in a coaching session, there is a lot of freedom that comes and that always feels like a blowback of purpose to me. I'm like, ah, there it is. When someone gets the light bulb of clarity, that feels like setting people free. That, that is my purpose, and that's somewhat what it looks like in a regular workday.

Jim: That's so good. Setting people free. There's so many places in our lives where we are still enslaved and getting people set free.

I wanna close out the show, Jessica, with a quote from near the beginning of your book. 'cause I just loved it, but I wanted to close out, so that's the last thing people hear. You say, "purposes are unique design working in harmony with the needs of the world." When we understand our purpose, the world around us becomes a better place, doesn't it, Jessica?

Jessica Rimmer: Absolutely. And I think we wake up wanting that kind of significance. And through life's experience, we don't find it. And that's what I hope people find as they read the book, is a renewed desire to go on the journey to discover their purpose so that the world around them really can improve, because it will.

Jim: Yeah. We often say on the show that as a Jesus follower, everything about you should be changing and everyone around you should be benefiting from your faith whether they believe in Jesus or not. That's the kingdom. And when somebody understands their purpose the way God intended, that's exactly what will happen. Just, everybody around 'em starts to just benefit.

Jessica, thank you for writing this book. Thanks for coming on iWork4Him to start off our year 2026. We're grateful. Dr. Jessica Rimmer, thanks for being on iWork4Him today.

Jessica Rimmer: Thank you both so much.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace, it's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.