Episode 12: Get in Alignment: "Where Faith Meets Forward Motion"

Today we’re diving into what it means to get in alignment—because when you do, that’s when real momentum starts to build. 

“You can hustle. You can pray. But if you're out of alignment, you’ll still feel stuck. So let’s unpack why alignment is the secret to steady progress, and how faith brings everything into focus. 

#Alignment #DivineAssignment #Momentum #Build #Realign

Faith in Action // Change in Motion

Transcript

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Well, hey, hey, hey. Welcome back everybody. Here we are, another episode of the Change Chasers podcast, and I'm Mandy, and I'm really just grateful for the gift of your time. I'm looking forward to the content that I've put together to share in this episode with you all today, because I'm just gonna be honest with y'all, right out of the gate. I needed all of this content, this reminder. All of the information for myself. So maybe this episode is more for me than you. And so with that being the case, I'm okay with that because my mantra is I'm growing as I'm going, right? And so I'm hoping that you guys are embracing that as well. Several people, if I've, the folks that I see out and about that have listened, they have said that statement to me that, Hey, I'm growing as I'm going. I'm like, all right, let's go friend. That is some of the podcast fam right there.'cause we are all desiring to be change chasers, right? So being change chasers together. And so with that said, today y'all were going to be diving into what it means to be in alignment. Because when you do, I truly believe that's when real momentum starts to build reality. Real talk. Thinking about the fact of the matter is, is that you can hustle, right? You can pray, but if you're out of alignment, then you'll still feel stuck. I've been there, I've done that, and I hope that I'm not doing it tomorrow. Right? Can I get an amen? Boom. But y'all, in all seriousness, let's unpack like why is alignment the secret to steady progress and how faith can bring everything into focus. So with that said, let's get into it. Hot take number one. What is alignment? Well, spiritually, I believe that alignment is living in sync with God's purpose, not just your plans. Hmm. That one's not always easy for me. Maybe not for you either. Uh, and then practically thinking about alignment of your thoughts, your beliefs, and your actions. Right? Are they pointing all in the same direction? And so we're gonna talk throughout this episode about a metaphor that I wanted to bring to our minds.'cause I think it's a great tangible daily reminder because the reality of it is, is most of us drive places pretty much almost every day, and hopefully most of us have a car or some public means of transportation. If, if you're living in a big city and you don't even need a car. But thinking about the metaphor of like when a car gets misaligned, right? What happens to the tires and the wheels and all of that. And so a car may be moving along, but if it's out of alignment, it can be dragging. It can be, you know, messing up, right? It's not able to. Perform. The tires aren't in the way in which they were created because out of alignment creates wear and tear faster. So I think that we can create that metaphor for our own real life application of that when we're not in alignment than y'all, we can be dragging, we can be wasting energy, and we can be wearing out faster. It makes me think about the verses from Proverbs, chapter three, verses five and six, where it reminds us to trust in the Lord with all of our hearts. Then it goes on to say that he will make our paths straight. So that leads us into hot take number two, thinking about some signs to be able to notice within yourself of signs of when you're out of alignment. And so with that, maybe. Maybe, you know. Exactly. Whew. Maybe you could even add 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, the extra on here. But thinking about getting you to kind of connect with this thought and asking yourself if you ever, think about some of these questions of do you feel burned out? You feel unfulfilled? Do we keep starting things but then we just can't seem to ever finish anything? Maybe you're praying for a breakthrough, but unfortunately you get caught up in ignoring obedience or maybe even your goals don't match your values. And so stopping and asking you to have like a, a self eval moment right now, right? Like a little bit of a self-evaluation and. Even the potential of saying like this is a reflection prompt of asking yourself and thinking about are your prayers and your patterns in sync. And again, like I said, you guys, this content is maybe even more for me than you because it has really helped me as I was thinking through, and every week when I prepare for these episodes, like I wanna add value to your life, but also I'm benefiting from. Putting all of this content together too, and thinking about how can we be in better alignment? Because we cannot grow as we go if we're out of alignment, right? Things have gotta be sync, there's gotta be a pattern in place and all of that. And so just with the encouragement of thinking about how can we get realigned if we've gotten a little bit hijacked, a little detoured, and some wear and tear is starting to happen too. Our mental mindset. And so thinking about Hot take number three, realignment and the idea of getting back in sync. And so y'all, I thought I would share because like I was saying, I was kind of doing the metaphor on this episode, and so I wanted to kind of share a personal story with you guys when I was 16 years old and I had only had my license three months, I ran to the grocery store to get one item that we needed for dinner that night. My sister-in-law was seven months pregnant. She was riding in the front passenger seat with me, and unfortunately, I was turning left out of the grocery store parking lot and a car was turning right into the parking lot, and they kind of wait for me to come out. And being a new driver, I didn't realize that that probably wasn't the wisest decision. And so another car came over the hill. Speeding, going really fast. And so as that car waved me out to turn into the parking lot, I started making my way out of the parking lot. And unfortunately, you guessed it, the car who came over the hill then bam hit me. And so luckily it wasn't horrible damage to my car. It did damage a little bit, the front bumper and that kind of thing, but more than anything, ooh, it damaged my. My spirit and my confidence in driving. I was so upset because I had my sister-in-law in the car with me who was seven months pregnant and I was terrified that something was gonna happen with the baby. And luckily she was fine. It was more of just a fender bender, but obviously it, I mean, it really wrecked my confidence. I was super, super nervous for a long time after that with driving. But I will say that if I am still to this day. I'm gonna pull out of a parking lot and somebody waves me out in front of them. I just sit there and smile and nod and maybe even wave and just wait my turn until I absolutely 100% know it's clear. I'll say that, I kind of allowed that experience to help me to be an even safer driver. And so thinking though about how I can make the point with sharing that story with you guys is. That my car got knocked out of alignment and so the front end had to go into the shop and, and get realigned. And so then that way it would quit pulling, to the left side and it wouldn't be just all jacked up. And so when I stop and, um, think about what would've happened to my tires, my front tire, you know, my front of my car and all of that, had I not put my car in the shop to get it realigned. Well, unfortunately, the tires would've ran out faster, right? And all that. And it would've cost more money than just spending the 40, 60 bucks, whatever it was, to have it realign. And so when I stop and I think about for us and our own personal lives, is that you, I think that this metaphor can sync up with our lives at different times, right? Because when we find ourselves exhausted, maybe unstable and struggling to move forward smoothly. Then it could very well mean that we are out of alignment. And so the question is, well, okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Right. And so how do we regroup? Maybe then, yeah, you can talk about how do we get realigned all day long. But you know, the thought of understanding that I believe that we're all wired differently, you know, in what works for one person. Might not work for another. Maybe you are really great at refocusing yourself, or maybe you're like me and some days y'all, you are also driving the hot mess express bus. I will say that I truly do believe that if we allow ourselves though, to stop and submit and let the master mechanic adjust us. Father God, right? You get my little wink, wink, non nod of, of calling God like he's a master mechanic, right? He gets to adjust us. He gets to help us to make our paths straight again. And whenever that happens, peace returns, progress resumes, and we won't find ourselves wearing out. Wearing ourselves out is real talk, right? I don't know about y'all, but some nights when I go to bed, I am absolutely exhausted because I've been grinding and going and just doing all the things for all the people, and so living a life like that, then it's kinda like the idea of thinking that like the front tires of a vehicle, when they get out of alignment, then we can all agree that buying new tires, it, it doesn't come cheap. And so keeping them properly aligned is not only safer, but it's also less expensive on our wallet or our pocketbook. So the real life application is that The point I'm really hoping that you're going to receive from thinking about this is y'all, that there's negative things that can happen in our lives and when we allow ourselves our schedules. To get out of alignment, to get out of balance. Keeping with the metaphor of the car out of alignment, life, out of spiritual alignment, pulling to one side, right, that equals drifting off God's path or the tires wear out and instability happens, and emotional or spiritual exhaustion happens. Or thinking about allowing Father God to be the mechanic realignment, so to speak, is that God is so awesome to gift us with restoring us, but first we must surrender, right? Our time, our talents, our treasures, maybe even our schedules. So in saying all this, I'm truly hoping that you sweet friends, as you're being kind enough to listen to a, a podcast about chasing change. Is the idea that you're willing to like, Hmm, okay, I'm gonna shift. Right? I've had an episode before about shift, shake and celebrate. Well, when we're willing to shift things and y'all, we get to stop and pivot and maybe put a new plan in place. I hope you're picking up what I'm putting down because thinking about the physical experience of driving a misaligned car. Can symbolize what happens when we don't regularly connect with God, when we don't allow God to be in his proper place in our lives. And so that's the number one thing that I would say when we think about, okay, well how can we realign in? The very first thing is we should put God in his proper place. Well, how do we do that? Well, step number one is I wanna encourage you guys, I'm doing this as well, so please know that too, that. I truly am taking all the advice that I give y'all as well, and, um, putting it into play for my own life.'cause I wanna be growing as I'm going too. And so number one, y'all, we need to pause and pray. We need to stop striving and start seeking God's voice. Next thing is maybe we need to audit our actions. Ask, do my habits match what I say and what I believe. Next thought to do is adjust your vision, clarify whether your current path aligns with God's assignment. That one's kind of gotten me pretty good here recently, and so maybe it will you as well adjust your vision. And then the last one that I wanted to encourage you to think about is move differently. Choose aligned action over busy action. That one. Yes, I am working on that one. Friends, and maybe you will be too. So thinking about Faith in Motion though, and some insight on that, I found this quote that I wanted to share with you guys, and it, it kind of got me in my feels, I'm gonna be honest. And the quote says, God can't bless who you pretend to be or what you weren't called to do. Hmm. Well, okay then. Right. Um, that's one of those quotes that I think that I'm going to need to continue to marinate on because I definitely never want to be a pretender or get myself spinning, like my wheels in place, so to speak, and not going anywhere and not making any forward progress. And not getting all caught up in trying to accomplish task and it not be what God has called me to do. Maybe you can relate. I mean, maybe you also are gonna join me on marinating on that quote together and thinking through those things as far as, huh, what does that mean to me of God can't bless who you pretend to be or what you weren't called to do. Shifting over to hot take number four, friends, some takeaway tools or to dos, but as I like to call it, in this part of every podcast episode, our C3 time, which is our change chasers challenge. I wanna encourage you if you're journaling or maybe if you're more of a sticky note person, then hey, whatever works for you. I've got some takeaways that I wanna encourage you with thinking about and maybe writing these questions down. So you might wanna pause the podcast or come back and, and revisit this is to ask yourself, okay, where am I misaligned in my fate focus or actions? Where am I misaligned in my faith focus or actions this week? I wanna encourage you, give some time to. Pause, reflect and pray over what God reveals to you. Then allow that list to help you to create a new plan of action on how you are going to take The next step to realign our scriptures for this week and this episode are Romans 12, two. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And Proverbs three sixes in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. Change. My friends will come if you are intentional. And so thinking about challenging you guys in your journaling and as you're thinking, remember eliminating that stinking thinking or as I like to say, stinking thinking, but the idea of being careful about what you are speaking over yourself. So I wanted to give you more of a positive alignment affirmation, and so maybe you wanna write this one down, is that I'm choosing purpose over pressure. I'm aligned with God's plan and moving in faith, and how awesome that can be, y'all, if we allow ourselves to truly put our thoughts that affirming alignment, actionable step into place and into practice in our own personal lives. So as I wrap up, I would love to leave you with some closing encouragement. And with that thought, I will say that when you're aligned with God, even your small steps carry heaven's weight behind them. You don't need to chase noise or hustle for attention. Clarity comes when you tune in to Father God's voice. Real change starts the moment that you stop striving and start sinking with God's plan. And what I have learned in my own personal life is that is when the shift begins, if we will let it. Thanks for listening to this week's episode. I hope that you'll share it with a friend, and I also do hope that you'll keep coming back each week to listen. I truly treasure the gift of your time and the privilege it is to speak into your life. My parting words of wisdom this week, friends, are that I wanna encourage you stay connected. Because when you're in step with your divine assignment, momentum feels natural, and faith helps everything come into focus. No striving just steady steps. At least that has been what I've noticed in my own personal life as I have intentionally been putting in the work to be in what I call healthier alignment. I know it's not always easy, but I want you to know that I'm cheering you on. Because I believe in you and I know that you got what it takes. I hope that each time that you get in your car this week to drive somewhere that you'll be reminded about the metaphor in this episode and allow that to give you the opportunity to stop. And not only make sure your car is in alignment, right, but also giving yourself the gift of pausing and praying, and maybe even shifting some things around so that you can better manage your own personal alignment. Maybe even gifting yourself with the action step of what I like to put in place and practice and say Release for peace. Maybe even release for peace. To the awesome master mechanic himself. Wink, wink. Nine. Nine. Praise God. I would just go ahead and put the shut to the up. Now. Friends, it's been a joy to be with you today. I. I hope that you have a blessed rest of the week, and I'll say, until next time, let's keep chasing change and living with purpose. Goodbye, sweet friends.