If you’re familiar with my podcast, Recover with God, this question is already familiar.

What does living with zeal look like in your life right now?

It’s the question I asked every guest on season 1, and I plan to continue the trend for season 2 later this year.

Before I have my guests answer, I set up the question with my own definition of zeal, which is — to live in passionate pursuit of a purpose.

Whether or not you’ve listened to my podcast, I thought it would be helpful to compile every answer from every guest and share them all here.

Read on to see how each of my podcast guests answered the question:

What Does Living with Zeal Look Like in Your Life Right Now?

Episode 2 — Heather Creekmore

“I do love that word zeal, too. It’s got zest, right?

“As I look back on my life, I think so much of it was spent focused on body stuff and there wasn’t zeal there. And so for me now, I am writing books and I’m podcasting, and I’m coaching women, and it’s so fun to really feel like you come alive, fully, when you are using the gifts that God gave you. And so that’s kind of what zeal has looked like for me.”

Episode 3 — Nyla Wiebe

“For me, I think things that steal my zeal or my joy are doing too much. And when I have too much on my plate, I rush and then I’m not enjoying something that maybe I would enjoy. I like to cook, but if I haven’t left myself enough time to cook, I’m going to rush and I’m not going to enjoy it. Or even my own work — I’m a podcast editor — and I enjoy communicating with clients, but if I’m rushing it’s not enjoyable. So, for me, bringing back the zeal and joy in my life has looked like simplifying and slowing down in my life. And I don’t know if you’re into the Enneagram, but I am an Enneagram 3 and we really love our productivity, so that can kind of become an idol sometimes, like my to-do list. And so that’s what it looks like for me, just simplifying. And I was listening to a podcast, and they were talking about how Jesus, when we watch him live his life in the Gospels, he wasn’t valuing productivity and efficiency. He sometimes took the long way or got stopped all the time, and it just kind of was a wake up call to me that… Oh, I’m valuing so much, doing so much, but that’s a worldly value. But God is like, I want you to do just your God assignments and that might look like doing less.”

Episode 4 — Brittany Ann

“Right now, it looks like examining all of the things I am doing, and seeing if they are suitable for the life that I say I want to lead in the future. It’s just coincidental that this is a season of life that I’m in right now where I have done a lot of things. We’ve all done a lot of things over our own lives. And going forward, I am really just putting everything on the table before God right now and saying, Okay, what am I doing that I should be doing? What am I doing that I shouldn’t be doing? Show me. It is all on the table. If there is anything you want me to do, I am here. If there is anything you don’t want me to do, I will lay it down. Totally fine. I just don’t want to get stuck in that rut of… Okay, this is just what I have always done, because it’s what I’ve always done. I want to take the time to figure out what’s working, what’s not working. Where am I going? Where do I need to make improvements? Where do I need to stop worrying about making improvements? Because we’re never going to be perfect, and that’s okay. But just to be more mindful of the ways that we’re spending our time and attention and focus.”

Episode 5 — Brittany Braswell, RD

“I love that definition. I think purpose is so important. So valuable. So I would say in this season of life, at the time you guys are probably hearing this, one of my favorite things is really just pursuing my passion and purpose and calling within my family. I love my business and what I do, but I should be on maternity leave when you guys hear this. So zeal will also be, for us, looking like adjusting and getting really excited about that transition into a family of five instead of four as we are living life with a newborn. I may feel slightly different about that when it gets here. I may be more excited about sleep. But I also really do love just passionately leading my clients and students toward Christ-centered food freedom and better body image within my own practice and business. So those are two of the areas where I feel like I experience a lot of zeal.”

Episode 6 — Joslyn Garcia

“I love the word zeal. I think it’s such a weird word, a weird spelling, and we don’t use the letter Z very often.

“But I mean, I think your definition is spot on, being passionate. And for me that has really presented itself more recently in my life as a way of being more passionate about who I am and who God has created me to be. It’s hard for me to be passionate without understanding how God created me. It’s hard to direct any sort of passion without knowing the direction He has given me. So, for me, zeal, lately has been a lot of understanding who I am and what to go after based on how I have been created uniquely and designed to fulfill my unique purpose.”

Episode 7 — Eden Davis, RDN, LDN

“Zeal is such a fun word! When I was reading into that I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. It could definitely be a word of the year…

“I really like the word zeal and I think I would say living with a purpose is just living in a joyful way. And kind of looking at things through intention and thoughtfulness. You know, looking at true joy, not joy in the moment. Nothing that is going to make me temporarily happy, but true, underlying joy in our soul, which we can really have in our relationship with God. So, that’s kind of what came to mind for me with that definition.”

Episode 8 — Cally Logan

“I think living with zeal is living vibrantly in all you were created to be.”

Episode 9 — Baylor Knott

“So the retired English teacher in me loves that you pointed out the alliteration. That makes my English teacher heart flutter.

“For me, as I was thinking about this, I really feel like living with zeal is living with your eyes up instead of down. I think a lot of times it is so easy, in whatever season of life you’re in, maybe especially for women, to just kind of like… head down, go forward, get through everything that is on my list so that I can make it through the day, right? Get to the end of the day. But I think if we can lift our eyes up and instead of looking down at everything we have to do, if we can look up and out at the world around us, then we are going to find these opportunities that God has placed in front of us for us to interact with others and share His love and share His glory. And so for me that’s what it is, that living on purpose, what it really looks like for me is looking for opportunity. Right? Where are the opportunities that God is placing in front of me where I can be an encouragement to someone else. Where I can potentially love someone else well and maybe point them to Jesus as a result of that.”

Episode 11 — Liesel Maddox, RDN

“When I think of the word zeal, I do honestly think about the work that I do. And it’s no secret that a lot of people who work in the field of eating disorders really care about this work because we’ve been affected by it, maybe personally in our own lives or walking closely with someone that we know and love, and it brings a lot of heart to this work. And part of my story now professionally is being a private practice dietitian, owning my own business, and so this work is my whole heart, just to get to work with a population and support the kind of people I care so much about their journeys. And it’s cool and I’m grateful to be in a spot where I think the Lord… you know, I look back on my own life and I’ll share some of this in my own story, where He was just orchestrating so many pieces through my own struggle with an eating disorder to help and to equip me to help others. And I know that not everyone has a job where it’s their whole heart and their passion, too, and I’m really grateful to have those two things that are mended together, because there’s not always that separation of work and my interests and my hobbies. Sometimes I feel like my interests and hobbies… it is my work. So, I really do just feel a lot of passion in that and a lot of joy with it, too. It’s hard work, no doubt. I mean, it’s heavy work a lot of times, but I’m just really grateful to see how the Lord has orchestrated so many pieces of my life personally and professionally to be able to do this work.”

Episode 13 — Zach Lloyd

“I love that [zeal] is a favorite word of yours. It’s a powerful word. And I just love anything that starts with Z. Not many words start with Z.

“I would say there’s this fire inside of me to serve the Lord in any capacity, but what that really translates to… I’m blessed enough to say it translates into my career… is the fact that I feel like I’ve gone through so much suffering is one of those things where I bring that up in health and fitness and workouts and stuff like that. And using that suffering I feel like is one of the most powerful things we all can do. So I’m passionate with zeal about just sharing that but also helping others see that their suffering is not for nothing and that there’s power in it and that God will just truly use that suffering to bless others. And it’s actually one of your superpowers, and if you don’t realize that, that’s what I’m just on fire to remind people and share.”

Episode 14 — Tori Peyton

“I think for me living with zeal is honestly giving my best every day and not judging what it is for that day. I think in the past I focused so much on being the perfectionist and being 100% every single day, and so for me it’s truly just meeting myself where I am and that being enough.”

Episode 15 — Jenessa Neal (my sister)

“For me, living with zeal is basically living with a very positive attitude. I think my entire life, I am just naturally a very positive person. A lot of that stems from how we were raised. I think mom and dad raised us pretty well and they were very good parents, so I feel like a lot of it stems from them. But how I look at it is just that every time something negative pops up in my life or I notice I start getting frustrated with something, I instantly flip a switch to… this could always be worse. I can handle the situation in the moment. I have so many things to be grateful for. And instead of thinking about the negative I think about what I’m grateful for in my life and it instantly makes the situation a little more positive. And so I’ve just always done that. And a lot of that stems from also being raised in the church because growing up we were in church Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night. We were in the church a lot. We went to church activities, camps, and so we grew up around that. And a lot of that positivity does come from God as well. And I truly think that internally whenever I’m thinking negative, I do try to just give it to God. You know, there are worse things in the world. God knows what’s happening. And so I just switch to something positive.

“How I’m using it in my life currently is that I am the head women’s volleyball coach at the University of Olivet and I am also an assistant athletic director, so I am constantly working with young adults and especially with my girls on my team, I am their role model. They’re looking up to me, so I try to be as positive as I can and every day there are girls in my office all hours of the day and some are asking for advice. Some just want to share their day with me — what happened and maybe they’re frustrated about something. So there are some times when I just have to listen and they don’t even necessarily need advice. They just want to get it off their chest. And then a lot of times I do have to give them advice, so I want to make sure I’m giving them the correct advice. So I always try to make sure it’s positive and I try to, if they’re a little bit upset about something, I try to spin it into a positive way. And I really do just try to be a good role model for them and stay positive when talking to them as well. I think that’s important.”

Episode 15 — Danae Russell (my sister)

“My passionate purpose right now would be to raise my two boys to be good strong Christian men. I’m a stay-at-home mom now and that’s my main purpose. I just want them to grow up to be strong in this crazy world and just try every day to incorporate God in their lives. And that’s kind of what it is right now.”

Want to learn more about my podcast — Recover with God? Click below for a synopsis and links to listen on your favorite podcast platform.