Living in God's Dream - Tips for Discovering Your Purpose!

Have you ever considered that life's detours might actually be part of a divine blueprint, guiding you to where you're meant to be? Through personal stories and reflections, we discuss the spiritual blueprint that's been with us all along. I offer practical advice on realigning with His direction and share insights on how surrendering to His will, even when it leads us down unexpected paths can lead us back to living out God's original dream plan for us.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Matters of the Heart podcast with Rishanda. Sunday Thoughts episode edition. Sunday Thoughts are stories I've experienced in life and I relate those stories to God's Word in a way where you can understand. It's never about preaching, but a discovery and trying to find God's voice and pick up a few lessons to be learned in our daily lives. This Sunday, let's take time to reflect and think about those experiences. These messages are often hidden in plain sight and everything that happens to us, whether good or bad. Hey everyone, welcome back. This is Rishanda. Listen, I don't know where you're listening to this. You might be on the YouTube channel or you might be on Matters of the Heart with Rishanda the podcast, because this is kind of like a dual episode. Okay, but welcome back, listen.

Speaker 1: 0:54

How have you been? How is your new year going? Hopefully everything is going well for you. I'm telling you, I feel like this is a different new year. I don't know about you, but I feel like this new year is pretty different as far as thought processes, as far as really wanting to do things, accomplish some things this year, right, we all want to accomplish something and, as I said in another video, it's like we want to accomplish it and we have these good mindset to do it, but at the same time, it's like before January is over, it's kind of like out the window, but we are not going to speak that this year. And speaking of speaking that today, I want to come to you, talking to you about something that most people do. However, most people say they do not do. Okay, and that is dream.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Do you have a dream? Do you dream, you know? Do you have dreams? I know, sometimes, when I go to sleep, I have dreams, and then there are other times I don't. But what about you? But there are some people that dream all the time and I feel like those that dream all the time is usually connected to their spiritual gifting or something of that nature, but I don't dream all the time that I go to sleep. However, I believe that, even from a child up, we all have had a dream, a dream of some sort, a dream of some kind that we want to do. Maybe you wanted to be something when you grew up. Okay, I know, for me, I wanted to be a lawyer, an actress, and I forgot what the other thing was. But it was a lawyer and an actress. Okay, I am not neither one of those things. So you might as well say the dream fold. And then I had a dream of being a nurse. Well, then I realized that I could not stand blood or needles. So that dream kind of fold too, okay. So I kind of stayed along the administration side. I pretty much love that side more than anything.

Speaker 1: 3:03

However, we all have dreams, but what do our dreams have to do with God? Okay, god has a lot to do with our dreams, and you might say well, what's that? So today's topic is living in God's dream. Tips for discovering your purpose. I know a lot of us don't know.

Speaker 1: 3:23

Some people don't know what their purpose is. They're like well, I don't know why I was born. I don't know what. I never really asked God what my purpose was.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Well, we all have a purpose, trust me, because when God created each one of us, he created us, you know, in the spirit, I seen God creating us. And when he sent us on our way right, I see like a blueprint in the back of our. You know how those architects have their blueprints and they're all rolled up, you know. And then they'll take the blueprint and they'll kind of spread it out on a table to kind of see you know what's going on and where they need to work and where they need to go. I see that in the spirit of God having one of those rolled up in our back pocket. And what it is is it's a plan, it's a purpose and it's a blueprint of your life, here's original dream of what he wanted for you and what he wanted for your life. Now, now you might say, well, I didn't know that that was in my pocket. Well, it is, it's in all. It was in all of our pocket. But a lot of times, how we grow up, what we grow up to do, a lot of times we get away from the things that we've always wanted to do, or our original dream. And you know, and life happens right, it doesn't mean that the dream that God had for you stopped. Okay, we just went in a different, in a different area.

Speaker 1: 4:56

So this all came about because one day I was scrolling through YouTube and I seen, you know, the color purple. For those of you that don't know what the color purple is, if you don't, then I don't know where you've been, but it came. A color purple is a wonderful movie that came out like back in the 80s. As a matter of fact, I remember when the book was so popular because my mom had a copy of it and I think I was a I don't know how old I was at the time, maybe seven, eight years old. I remember seeing my mom with that book, okay, but the color purple was a wonderful movie.

Speaker 1: 5:30

However, what caught my attention was the title of the YouTube video, and it says the cast of the color purple sings I surrender all. And I'm like, oh, they all singing. Now, new Fantasia was a singer but and I knew Taraji kind of, you know, dabbled in some singing, you know from hustle and flow, and I don't know if she's sung in Empire, I'm really not for sure but so I knew I knew a Fantasia for sure, and I knew Taraji kind of dabbled, but I was like to Oprah and you know Danielle. So I clicked on it because I'm like, first of all, this was like one of my favorite songs I surrender all. Okay, keep that in mind, I surrender all and. And so I clicked on it so I can look at it and I listened to what they had to say. The guy on there that was interviewing them was Devon Franklin and he was asking them different questions and whatever.

Speaker 1: 6:24

However, when he got to Oprah, you know, and he was asking her, he was like, you know, you have a story that I that just makes me weep, like every time. And the story was, you know, about her and her getting the part in the color purple back in the 80s she played Sophia and and how that all came about. But this is a powerful message about living in God's dream, you know, and what she said really caught my attention because she shared her journey of stopping her own dreams and surrendering to God's plan, so which inspired me to reflect on my own life and my desire to walk in God's dream for me. And she said, you know, in that she said I stopped dreaming. I stopped dreaming, you know, she said, and I told the Lord that I want whatever your dream is for me. So, whatever your dream is for me, whatever you had planned up, you know she was saying I want that dream, I want what you want. So forget my dreams, forget what I thought for myself or what I wanted for myself. What is it that you want for me? Because that's what I want, and I thought that was so powerful. Now I know, you know y'all say a lot about, as they say, miss oh, but you know, don't cancel out, you know what she got to say, because sometimes we cancel people out. What they have to say may be what God is trying to say to you, okay. So I was like, wow, you know.

Speaker 1: 8:02

And at that moment I began to think to myself you know what, god, I feel like I've always tried to plan my own way. I feel like I've always tried to make my own plan, or what I want to do, how I want to do it. My dreams it was always me, me, me, my, my, my. But. And there have been times in my life where, yeah, I was like, okay, god, take the wheel. Okay, god, I give you control over this situation. But to give God control over your dreams, like that's huge. And so I began to tell God that night and I said, god, you know what I said. I, tonight, I give you control over my dreams. Whatever it is you want to do, however it is, you want to do whatever.

Speaker 1: 8:53

If I destroyed the blueprint that you had for my life, if I'm off track from that, if I'm off track from the purpose, if I'm off track from you know from where you wanted me to go from the plans that you had for me. Lord, then put me back on track to the plans that you originally had for me from the beginning of time, because God had a plan, a purpose and a blueprint for all of us, right? And so, you know, that's what sparked me, like that really did something to me. I'm like wow, and I remember like a couple of weeks ago and I had just been saying this out of the blue, I said God, I said you can change my career. If you want to change my career, god, you can change my career. Like that was before.

Speaker 1: 9:40

I looked at this, that video, and I didn't know why I was saying that, but I was just like God, if you want to change my career, you can change my career. I'm like you can do whatever it is you want. You know, with my life with me, with my career, where I'm at, if I'm not driving the car that you feel like I should drive, lord, you can change that. If I'm not living in the place that you want me to live, god, you can change that. God, if I'm not on the job that you had originally planned for me to be on, you can change that. But whatever it is you want to change in my life, you can change it to match up with what you had originally planned for me from the beginning of time, and so I want to encourage you to reflect on your own life journey and whether they're aligned with God's plan.

Speaker 1: 10:27

Okay, sometimes we, we want what we want, right, you know, and we feel like everything in our life is going fine and have you ever thought or sat back and thought like, okay, is this what God wants? Is this really what God wants for my life? You know, is the. Did God want me to be here on this job, you know? Did God want me, you know, to get that car? Did God want me, you know, to get into a relationship or friendship with this, with this person or with these people? Did God want me to, you know, to be a part of this ministry? We have to ask God, okay, god, what is it that you want? You know, what is your, what is your plan for me? Because I want those plans to be aligned with what you have. Right, this is what I want you to do. So that's reflecting. Okay, so we want to reflect on your own, our own life journey and where we are right now in that process. And then you know I want to give you some practical steps, like prayer and reflection, for seeking God's guidance and discovering his dream for you.

Speaker 1: 11:35

It's going to cause you to have to. Of course, you got to ask God, but in most cases you're going to have to spend time. You know, with God You're going to have to spend time. You're going to spend time in his presence. It may cause you to get up a little earlier in the morning than what you want to get up. Okay, you're used to getting up at seven o'clock. Okay, maybe God wants you to start getting up at five o'clock, because God has a strategic plan for each one of us and he's always speaking. Okay, he's always talking. We just have to make the time Okay To listen to him.

Speaker 1: 12:08

Okay, and be open to the change that God that God is is giving you, or what he tells you. Be open to it. When we go to God, we have to go with an open mind and an open heart. I always say that we have to go with an open mind and an open heart. We can't go to God and our minds is closed and our hearts is closed because, depending on what he tells us, you are open it. If it's something that I want to hear and I'm going to close it. You know, if it's not something I want to hear, go to God with an open heart and an open mind, because he wants to, you know. Give him an opportunity to make the change. You may not like it, it may not feel comfortable, you know, it may be so different from what you are used to. Okay, I know you're in right now, but I promise you it's better to be in the will of God than not to be in his will at all.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Okay, and then we want to completely surrender to God and allow him to shape your life. Surrender to him, okay, surrender everything to him, even your children. If you got pets, surrender those to him. Surrender everything to him. Surrender your finances, surrender everything. God, I surrender all, I surrender all. This stuff is in mine anyway, you know so I so I want you to embrace the idea that God's dream for you is bigger than you can imagine. It's bigger than what you dream. It's bigger than you know the dreams that you have for yourself. It's bigger than the plans that you have written out Like it's so, so much bigger than that, but you have to get with God in order to find out what it is. So I wanna give you a couple of tips, okay, and it's just five of them, okay. And the first tip is stop and reflect. Okay, take a moment to pause and reflect on your life's journey. That's what we were just talking about. Okay, we want to reflect.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Reflecting is very important, and I'm finding myself in doing that with my own life, just reflecting, and I'm in a season where I feel like God is taking me back to some things that he had already originally said or that he had already originally told me to do. You know, and whatever, and either I didn't do it or I half did it, or, you know I did it, but it's mostly I feel like I'm going back to the things that I didn't do, or I half did, okay, and I feel like God is taking me back to those things. So it's causing me to reflect, it's causing me to go back and just think okay, god, I failed this test. I didn't do exactly what you asked me to do, or I didn't do it at all, or I didn't do it in the way that you had. You know, the way you had it later.

Speaker 1: 14:56

We want to stop and reflect and consider whether you strayed from God's original plan for you. So that's pretty much what we're doing, because a lot of times God isn't gonna bless us with more, he's not gonna give you a new word, he's not gonna tell you something else or put more on your plate if you haven't did the other stuff. You know that's almost like, and what I see in the spirit is a child sitting at a table, you know, with a plate full of food, but it's still asking the mom and dad to give them more food. Mom and dad ain't gonna give them more food because you ain't finished what's in your plate. Once you finish what's in your plate okay, and you digested that, okay, you you know then we'll see if you, if you can handle some more, but it's like asking for more and you already have enough. So we need to go back and do the things that God had originally said that, those things that we strayed away from you know, because those things, once we get those things done, then God will open doors to other things. Have you ever realized that maybe the things that God told you to do, that you haven't done that could be the very reason why you haven't moved up. That could be the very reason why you know you're kind of. You know you kind of. You feel like you're in limbo and you don't know which way to go or what to do, because God had already told you some things to do. He told you this thing to do that's going to unlock this other thing that you're supposed to be doing. Okay, so you know. So we have to go back, we have to reflect, we have to go back and we have to see or figure out where do we stray away from God's plan? Where do we stray away from His original plan?

Speaker 1: 16:35

Tip number two seek divine guidance. Ask the Lord to reveal His dream for your life. Lord, what is your dream for me? What is it? What was your plan, your purpose and your blueprint for me from the beginning of time? Lord, what does that look like? You know? Show me what that looked like. And if what I have going on in my life is not lining up to that, then, lord, you know you have complete control to change whatever you want to change. Just so, god, me and you are on the same page. Okay, that's the key, lord. I want me and you to be on the same page. Okay, I don't want you all the way over here and I'm way over there, but I want us to be on the same page and pray for clarity and understanding about your purpose. You know, lord, give me clarity If I'm not walking in my purpose right now. Well, give me clarity as to what that is.

Speaker 1: 17:29

Number three embrace change. Be open to change in various aspects of life, including your career, your location or even your identity. God's dream for you may not be in the city where you are living. His dream for you may be for you to live in California, or for you to live in Arizona, or for you to live in Seattle, washington or Texas or wherever, or Hawaii for that matter. That may be God's dream for you, but you stuck over here in Mississippi, like what you doing there. That is not where God wants you to be. Are you over there in Alabama? That ain't where God wants you to be. God wants you in South Carolina, you know. So be willing to accept whatever change and embrace whatever God is bringing, whatever he's going to reveal. Okay, trust that God's plan may involve transformations for your ultimate fulfillment. You're gonna, hey, some things gonna have to change, okay In order for his will to be fulfilled. Okay, you have to be. You know you may have to take a very deep breath and you have to be okay with that.

Speaker 1: 18:38

Number four surrender completely. You know how sometimes we want to, we wanna. Okay, I'll give you this, but I need to keep all of this. I need to keep this over here, because this is where I'm comfortable. I can't afford to surrender completely to you, god, because I have no idea what you're doing. I know what I have right here, but I have no idea what you're doing over there. Okay, so I'm kind of I'm a little shaky. We're giving you everything. You have to surrender completely.

Speaker 1: 19:08

This is what I call blind faith. Okay, blind faith, okay, it's it's it's meaning that everything that you felt comfortable with, everything that you felt like you knew, everything that you that you thought you knew, or you, you, you know, or whatever that made you comfortable, it is gone. You are completely stripped, okay, you can't even reach for anything. You are literally walking in the dark. Okay, and a lot of times that is what God wants for us. Okay, in order for him to get, he just needs you to trust him. He just needs you to trust him. So declare your surrender to God, offering all aspects of your life to him.

Speaker 1: 19:49

Trust that God's dream for you is bigger and better than anything you can imagine. And, number five, live in God's dream. So, once you discover God's dream for you, commit to living it every single day. Lord, I commit my will to, to your will. Whatever you want, god, I commit my way and my will to you and understand that living in God's dream brings true fulfillment and purpose. It's going to lead you to your purpose. Most of us want to know what our purpose is. You know, where am I supposed to be? Where am I supposed to go? Well, these dreams that God has for you, these, once they unlock, you know, once these dreams are unlocked God has so many things for you it's going to lead you to your purpose, exactly where you need to be. Now.

Speaker 1: 20:36

There's a disclaimer here, because it doesn't mean that things are going to be perfect. Okay, it don't mean that things are going to be perfect. It don't mean that, oh, my God, it's going to be sunshine and roses and a and a bright, sunny day. No, you're still going to have some hardships and you're still going to have some hiccups, and you're still going to, you know, going to trip over some things. Okay, that's just life. But the thing is and I say, at least you will be in God's will, you will be in his will to the point to where he can keep pushing you forward. Okay, as opposed to not being in his will and he got to pull you back and you got to wait here for a moment and you got to sit over here and you got to do all this. No, you're in his will. Yeah, you have all these little trials and tribulations. That's going on. Okay, because just because God said it, it don't mean that it's perfect, you know. But at least you're in his will, you're on the right track and he can just move you forward. Okay, he can just push you forward. Okay, because you're in line with where he wants you to go, even if it feels uncomfortable.

Speaker 1: 21:45

So, what does God's dream for you? And I want you to ask yourself that. You know, if you journal, take out your journal and just say God, what is your dream for me? What is it? What is your plan, what is your purpose, what is your blueprint? Because that's what I ultimately want. It's the thing that I need, and the thing that I want, that I don't, that I didn't know I needed and that I didn't know that I even wanted okay.

Speaker 1: 22:13

So I want to say a short prayer, god. We surrender our worries, our problems and our fears and doubts over to you. Your powers are vast, god. They're so big, they're so huge, they're so unimaginable. Lord, empower us, guide us, give us the vision, give us clarity and open doors for us. God, lord, bring all things from the unseen into the scene and, lord, while you're at it, strengthen our faith to trust the process, because trusting God is trusting his process.

Speaker 1: 22:54

Listen, I hope you got something out of that and I hope that this year, in 2024, you dream big. Okay, because that's how big dreams, big dreams that God has for you. They are so big, they are so wide, they're so fast. He wants so much for you, he wants so much for you. He had so much in store for you from the beginning of time. Okay, he had that plan, he had that purpose, he had that blueprint, okay, and he gave it to you. Now we got to go back, we got to wait from that. And now we got to go back and we got to ask okay, god, what was it? What? What is it that you want for me, lord? I surrender, oh I surrender. I give you myself, I give you everything I got. I just want what you want for me.

Speaker 1: 23:52

So, again, I hope you got something out of that journal. Dream big. Ask God what those dreams are. It might be something that he's already told you. You might have to take some steps back. Okay, open some journals you know that you have, or some things that you written down that strode all over the place of things that God told you five years ago, things God told you six years ago, things God told you three years ago or even a year ago. Okay, for some of you. Six months ago, god told you okay, go back to those things and see what it was. Okay, because you go back to those things and you actually are obedient to those things and you do those things. Those things are going to push forward into the destiny that God has for you. So I hope you have the most amazing day.

Speaker 1: 24:40

Listen, you know you can follow me on the podcast at matters of the heart with Rashanda. Every your favorite music station and podcast stations reside, or you can hang out with me here on the YouTube channel. It's inspirations with Rashanda, which is a little bit of this, a little bit of that. It's all things inspiration for your mind, body and I will talk to you guys next time. Dream big. That was it for today's episode. I hope you were inspired and feel positive vibes whenever you spend some time with me. Rashanda and the matters of the heart podcast. Thank you for tuning in and don't forget to join me next time as we dive deeper into our spiritual, mental and physical journey. You can follow matters of the heart podcast on Facebook to stay tuned for what's coming next. Feel free to share the episodes while you're here. Also, stay with me by subscribing wherever your favorite music and podcast stations reside and, as always, watch your heart, because its actions will follow. Thank you for listening.