Finding God’s Answers in the Everyday

Ever feel like you’re frantically searching for answers, only to find that they’ve been subtly presented to you through a friend, podcast, sermon, book, or even a casual conversation at the supermarket? That may be God at work, preparing and equipping you for new seasons, challenges, and blessings.

Join us as as we explore this through the lens of our experiences and scripture. Lanée shares her personal journey through a transformative soul reset, offering practical insights and relatable anecdotes that reveal how the noise of the world can often drown out the divine unless we take intentional steps to listen. Sandy complements this by bringing in wisdom from God's Word and real-life stories, emphasizing the importance of stillness and humility. Together, they provide a roadmap to nurturing a deeper connection with God, allowing us to let our light shine brightly in every facet of our lives. Whether you’re seeking spiritual rejuvenation or simply curious about finding God’s answers in your daily routine, this episode offers a refreshing perspective that’s both inspiring and attainable.

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Imagine Yourself is hosted by Lanée Blaise and Sandy Kovach. Lanée is a TV writer and producer, motivational speaker and podcaster. Sandy is a radio personality, voiceover artist and podcaster. They come to you from the Detroit Metro area and invite guests from all over the world to help encourage you in your health, career, faith journey and more!

Transcript

Lanee Blaise [00:00:00]:
Hello, everybody. It's Lanae here with Sandy, and I wanna share a little secret with you. There are many, many times in life where god gives you a word, a book, a sermon, a message, a new friend, or even a podcast that is actually setting you up to be blessed in your upcoming season. Now to put it another way, I just want to say to everyone listening, sometimes you are about to enter a new year, a new job, a new challenge. Nobody really wants those, but a new something, you know, something new, something different. And if you take the time to look back carefully, you will see that God was preparing you and strengthening you from the inside out, giving you the wisdom, the fortitude, and even very specific certain skills and knowledge to help you get through what was gonna happen next. Whether good or bad, God had your back. You were gonna be equipped.

Lanee Blaise [00:01:12]:
So this last episode that Sandy and I had with Adara Walton, who is my aunt, Reverend Adara, on Finding God in the Quiet Moments, along with some of the other episodes, gosh, there were some really powerful ones. Josh Snyder had one about making sure we overcame burnout. There was one with Melanie Kybell on How We Are Each Lovable. These episodes and these messages that are just going around that God is spreading have really helped people that I know and helped me with some of the things that we are encountering right now. So all this to say, long winded way to say, I just feel like it's time for a soul reset. Sandy and I talked about this. I feel like I'm in the middle of 1. Sandy might be in the middle of 1.

Lanee Blaise [00:02:03]:
You might be in the middle of 1 yourself. And the hardest part, in my opinion, of getting that soul reset going is getting quiet enough and silent enough to listen and to surrender and let God show us the way. Because when we focus on and listen to God, instead of all the noise and craziness of the world, we will see how God works with us, for us, and in us.

Sandy Kovach [00:02:35]:
Well, there's no better place to go than scripture. The scripture that comes to mind most when I think about what you're saying is Psalm 4610, be still and know that I am God. And that says a lot about trusting God, but it also says a lot about, the silence to hear his voice. So soul reset, you brought that up. And you brought that up specifically when you texted me that you have gone through a major soul reset. So I'm dying to hear about how all this occurred.

Lanee Blaise [00:03:07]:
Yeah. I like I said, I kinda had to piece it together after the fact and realize that all these different episodes that I had mentioned before were really pouring into me because I needed it. Sometimes there's things you you didn't even know you needed. Right? Right. And in this case, not just the episodes, there's also this book. I know this is not usually what we do, but I I just have to say about this book. This book is called unraveled. Unraveled by Diana Larrea, and it's called Unraveled, A Love Letter to Those Finding Their Way.

Lanee Blaise [00:03:45]:
It has just been very interesting because I do love scripture, and I do love devotional books and some books that are older with wisdom. But this is a very recent one. Like, this was written during COVID, I believe. And this lady is a little bit younger than me. It's it's just very relevant, in my opinion, to what we're all kinda going through, and this book is is kinda her conversation between her and God. The part that hit me the most, the part, like I said, that has just been preparing me that I just wanted to say that it's given me a soul reset, is to really don't do this big, huge thing where you put this big line between life and people and the world and then God. Make it where when you take the time away with God, like you mentioned, be ready to take all of that good energy and good passion and then go back into the world with it. Like, to be fair, I'm not saying go around and cram things down people's throat or in their face, but actually show up with your whole spirit and your whole faith when you go to work, when you go to the store, when you meet new people.

Lanee Blaise [00:05:05]:
Like I said, I'm not saying that you have to go out necessarily and preach to people, but let that light shine. That's kind of what Adara was telling us, Reverend Adara was telling us in the last episode, to let your light shine. And, like, I'm wearing this great yellow shirt today just for Sandy to see, of course, because no one else can see it. But I just wanna be more intentional about letting my light shine, letting my faith come through. I think I've mentioned before in this episodes before that there's a group of young Black women, and we meet every month. And these are all women who are interested in television and film media. There is just something special about talking about the things within the industry when we do our our sessions. I'm the facilitator, the host of them.

Lanee Blaise [00:05:54]:
But there's also something that I keep realizing that God keeps letting me know. Don't just talk about how to write the best script or how to network with folks and how to get, you know, your show produced. Incorporate other things. Some things more like, you know, how to have great self care, how to have great mental health. But then also, it is okay, especially if you ask for God's wisdom, to drop in certain faith filled words or encouragement, or even if there's certain women in there that on the side wanna talk about their journey. I guess what I'm getting to is when you open up more about your faith in gentle, beautiful ways, other people will open up and it starts to spread in the world in a way that can be contagious in a beautiful way. You might say, well, is that really a soul reset? It's a soul reset because I'm just putting in everything in my life. With my husband, I'm really just trying to not say everything that's on my mind all the time.

Lanee Blaise [00:07:07]:
I'm trying to be like, you know, is this really necessary? Am I saying this with truth and love and saying it with kindness and compassion? Or am I just being ridiculous? I I want

Sandy Kovach [00:07:20]:
to Or snarky?

Lanee Blaise [00:07:21]:
Are you snarky? Sometimes sometimes snarky. Sometimes, I know that some people say that it might be passive aggressive. Sometimes I'm just aggressive aggressive. You know, it's just all the things. I don't want that anymore. I want a Soul reset. I want a Linae reset. Also, as far as even to be fair in the industry with the TV and film stuff that I've been doing, when I sit quietly, I start to get more direction.

Lanee Blaise [00:07:48]:
I'm kind of nudged or pointed in the direction of a certain person. Or now I kind of even if I'm going through LinkedIn and someone pops up there, I'll say like, God, should I even accept this connection or reach out to this person to connect or or no? Is this my ego in charge, you know, or trying to run the show? Or is this something that's beautiful and blessed and not transactional? So it's a soul reset equaling a life reset. So that is what I was getting at today when I was texting you, Sandy, saying that the whole concept of reset is powerful. Reset your year. Reset your clocks. You know

Sandy Kovach [00:08:35]:
Now we already did that.

Lanee Blaise [00:08:37]:
You did that. We just had the election reset. 4 years, there'll be another election reset. When we change jobs, sometimes we have to reset, but we can also reset our minds. We can reset our hearts, and we can reset our lives. I really think the best way to do all of it is to start with resetting our soul. So that is what I was getting at because it has just been for a lot of people I've spoken with, it's just been a tough time recently. And there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unknowns, which is in a way, it's always the case.

Lanee Blaise [00:09:11]:
We never know what's gonna happen, you know. But in personal lives, in a global way, there's a lot of conflict still going on in the world. And I promise that when you get quiet and get still with God and with you when you go with His leading and you lead with love and you do that soul reset and you start to let God soak into all the areas of your life Like I said, your work, your marriage, your friendships, when you get your coffee, you talk to the person handing you the coffee. All these places are areas where God can let you touch someone's heart and God can help you encourage a soul reset for them. So

Sandy Kovach [00:10:01]:
because you never know what's gonna affect them. I mean and like you said, it doesn't have to be, you know, you're reaching out even specifically about your faith. Sometimes people just wanna feel seen and they wanna feel acknowledged. And you having a like, I had a conversation with somebody in the supermarket about what brand of deodorant. You know, it's just like, we just connected and I'll probably never see her again. I had a talk with another lady at the grocery store about cat food and I don't know. I seem to be one of these people that that people talk to for whatever reason. And I enjoy it.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:34]:
I really just try to be nice and friendly. And, you know, if it ever came to faith, sure, I'd be willing to talk about that. But I think it's kind of like what Adara said and what you brought up. Sometimes, it's just like spreading your light and being open to talking to people maybe you wouldn't ordinarily talk to. Because I didn't walk out the door thinking I was gonna, like, start talking about deodorant or anti odor or anything else.

Lanee Blaise [00:10:58]:
But but to your point too, and sometimes those conversations you said you may never meet that person again. But there are these times where sometimes you do meet these people and they end up becoming your friend or people are important. People are worth it. We are all worth it. And that's why I say even the episode about lovable too. Where we are lovable. We were made by God. We are supposed to be out here, of course, living our life and and doing things, but we're all supposed to be being in a camaraderie with other people.

Lanee Blaise [00:11:27]:
And, to your point too, there's a person who she and I have a friendship, but we also talk about professional things. And we hadn't really ever gotten on the topic of faith much, but we somehow ended up there. It was like I said, it wasn't forced. And that's the good part when it's not forced. We were even talking about a few little Instagram posts and people that we follow who give great words of of inspiration. I'll just say, like, by the time we finished talking about things, we were bringing up some different scriptures in Matthew, and she just texted me, like, right before this episode, like, good morning. Is there a good time that I could maybe call you in the next couple of days? Because I wanna share something that happened on my God walk and what I heard from him. Mhmm.

Lanee Blaise [00:12:20]:
She and I have never talked like that before, but I actually want, like, maybe my, I don't know, New Year's resolution or goal or something is to just start to have more and more people in my life in areas that I didn't usually incorporate God and faith and light even to even the word shining my light, like just really implementing that more.

Sandy Kovach [00:12:45]:
Yeah. And like you said, sometimes you can become friends. With our connected world, and you brought up social media, same thing. There's all kinds of ways. Yes. One of the things that Reverend Adara was talking about was spending the silent time. And she recommended just sitting in silence and letting the thoughts pass. And, you know, you'll get better and better at just having a quiet mind.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:09]:
I've been kind of doing that a little bit. But I can't tell you that while I've been sitting in silence, I've been hearing from God. That hasn't happened. However, because I've been sitting in silence, I have just been having more revelations in general. And, you know, God speaks to me a lot through dreams, I believe, and it's very scriptural. There's many times where God will speak through dreams. So, I think that's valid. But most recently this morning, so I'm reading in Samuel, I get to, David and Bathsheba.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:41]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm like, okay, we're about to have some Real Housewives stuff here, you know, and where he is unfaithful to his wife and manipulative and has somebody killed, you know, her husband and David, a man after God's own heart. And this example is used a lot. It's not quite as popular as David and Goliath, which is when David is the hero. But he's the villain in this one and same guy and still after God's own heart. But as I'm reading it, I'm thinking about, so this is adultery. Right? This is plus plus murder and all the things.

Sandy Kovach [00:14:18]:
But God put on my heart by bringing up a dream I had had in my mind and a few other things that although there had been, and I hope there would never be, I'm pretty sure, there's no adultery in my marriage or anything even close to that, there had been a thing that I have just an attitude that I've had. And it's not even something that I'm doing on purpose. It's just kind of the way I am. But it has been negatively affecting my husband. And I thought about it and I'm like, Yeah, that would negatively affect him. That does feel emotionally impactful. So basically, by being silent and clearing my mind, I have had more of these things come up in dreams and just just random things like this morning, like getting ready to read a scripture and God getting my attention before I got into it, you know, just saying, hey, David and Bathsheba. Hey, adultery.

Sandy Kovach [00:15:14]:
Hey, remember that dream? Hey, you know, you know how he puts things together.

Lanee Blaise [00:15:18]:
Yeah. And it's it's leading you. It is like putting pieces of a puzzle together, which I hate to say that, but in a way, sometimes you do have to, like, focus and think enough to actually get the message. But and not only are you getting the message and God is leading you, but you have me. Then you remember I was saying I'm trying to be different in my marriage too. Maybe there's some other folks out here listening who are like, it's not like I'm a bad wife. It's not like I am running around on my husband or anything. But like you said, the tone, the attitude, something under the surface in the way that we say or do things might need to be looked at.

Sandy Kovach [00:15:56]:
Yeah.

Lanee Blaise [00:15:56]:
She'll just say it like that.

Sandy Kovach [00:15:58]:
My husband says I have, an edge. And I thought I have an edge. You know, me, miss sweet person here, I've got an edge, but apparently I have an edge.

Lanee Blaise [00:16:09]:
Yeah. I I mean, I know we're getting personal here, but I agree. My husband has said the same thing about me, and he has actually even said this is terrible because it's about a pop. But all of my sisters from my dad's side, we all have that same thing. Like, that there was something my dad tried to put in us when we were growing up. He used to tell us, he said, I wanna make sure that my daughter's never, like, impressed by some dude's money or job or status or celebrity or anything like that because they already know that they came from a home where they are gonna be, like, totally fine with or without them. And that's great when you're younger and you don't want your daughters to run behind some crazy dude who thinks he's all that. But once you get married to nice men, you probably need to leave that attitude behind.

Lanee Blaise [00:17:08]:
And there is something that crops up in me that does that. And it's kind of like my husband didn't call it an edge, but it's something not good. It's something not helpful. And I keep going back to God because I keep not quite getting it right. I keep saying like, God, can you help me here? And the Holy Spirit will show me something from the perspective of my husband. I'm like, okay, I get it. That would not be helpful. So let me switch.

Lanee Blaise [00:17:38]:
And then I go and do something new crazy. But but all this to say like, I wonder too again if we are unconsciously or unknowingly doing something that someone's listening to right now, that is a message for them. Or even if there's some man who's listening, who's like, maybe there's something that he's doing that might not be as patient and kind and loving and all those things that are said at weddings,

Sandy Kovach [00:18:03]:
you know, with

Lanee Blaise [00:18:04]:
their spouse.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:06]:
No. It's funny. We get comfortable in our homes with our spouses and we just sometimes that edgy, whether it's caused by something we learned in your case, or just personality. I still can't figure out where my edge is, but I'm going to be praying about that because God was apparently sort of saying, you know, he's not wrong.

Lanee Blaise [00:18:30]:
So And he was showing it to you, like like you said, by putting it all together. That's the other part about God. Sandy, there are so many times where I feel like, hey, God, we need to talk about finances or something in my life. And God's like, nope. It's not finances. I'm like, yep. It's finances. Nope.

Lanee Blaise [00:18:51]:
It's actually the way that you feel about yourself. You're not giving yourself the type of self compassion that I want my child to have. And I'm like, what's that have to do with finances? And then, like, some weird way, either a, it will have to do with finances. And once you get that self compassion piece in place properly, then the finances come flowing. Or b, finances just really wasn't what God cared about. It may be what you cared about, but God cares about things. His ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. So, yeah, there's that part too.

Lanee Blaise [00:19:34]:
It's not always as practical or logical as we might want it to be.

Sandy Kovach [00:19:40]:
Yeah. We have our laundry list, and we bring it to God. And sometimes we don't even stop to say thank you for what I have. And, you know, lately, I won't get too deeply into this. God's just been opening up my eyes to what a lot of other people are going through. And I'm not trying to get anybody into the comparison game because there's always people who are gonna have worse and not as bad. And it's just God gives you what's on your plate. And it's all ends up to be for your good and his glory, you know, in some way in long form.

Sandy Kovach [00:20:16]:
Right? But it does give a little perspective when you're worrying about, you know, Dang it. How come I can't find the right coffee creamer? That's a really stupid example, maybe. But it's important to me. I love my coffee and I'm having trouble figuring out the best non dairy creamer that, you know, works for my health. And then there are people maybe that can't even buy coffee creamer. You know? There's people who don't have fresh water. All this to say, count your blessings. Thank God.

Sandy Kovach [00:20:43]:
Say thank you for my blessings. Thank you for what I have as you open. And then another thing to do, apparently, for me is important now, is to start with the it doesn't have to be a certain amount of time. But even if you could just sit for a minute and just clear your mind before you even open your bible. And it's just, God, what do you have

Lanee Blaise [00:21:02]:
for me? And isn't that crazy that it is hard now for us humans in society to take a minute of stillness and quiet and listening. We are always too busy. We're too busy, too busy, too busy. Or if we get too much into the way that it looks or the performative component of doing something. My my mother just told me the other day, she said that she was reciting certain prayers each day, and then she got a nudge from God. Like, can you stop with the reciting of the prayers? Can you just pray regular like I'm sitting right there with you? And it was this whole image of can you imagine if every time you called your best friend, they recited some paragraph to you as opposed to just, hey, how are you? Let's talk. Let's be and she said she was like, oh, yikes. She was seeing it as praiseworthy, but it had started to turn into maybe something just too recited.

Lanee Blaise [00:22:08]:
It wasn't getting the depth that was needed. So she switched. So now she's does the more heart to heart prayer just straight from the heart. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:19]:
And there's nothing wrong with occasionally if you wanted it's and people are different. This is was between your mom and God.

Lanee Blaise [00:22:25]:
In that season too. Because before, the prayers that she was reciting were strengthening her, but then there became a time and it even kind of says this in the bible, like, at first when you're a baby, you have to only drink milk, and then you get older and you're able to have actual food. That I think is kind of what was going on there too.

Sandy Kovach [00:22:44]:
And remember the story in the Bible when, I think it's a, I can't remember which book this is in, about the guy who is beating his chest and, oh my gosh, I'm repenting. And and then there was the other guy, the Pharisee who's saying to God how, thank God I'm not like these other people who's praying the best prayer. It's the one who's just truly repenting and asking for help and forgiveness. It's not somebody who thinks they have it all together and can recite eloquent prayers. I love some of the beautiful prayers that we have, the Lord's prayer. I mean, he gives that to us. There are some beautiful prayers that are in devotionals and different denominations have beautiful liturgies and things like that. So not to put any of that down, but it comes down to, you know, how you're handling it in your prayer and devotion

Lanee Blaise [00:23:36]:
time. There's even my aunt has one. She said sometimes it's just as easy as saying, guide me, show me. Dear Lord, guide me, show me. Also sometimes like just help. Please help.

Sandy Kovach [00:23:46]:
Yeah. Breath prayers.

Lanee Blaise [00:23:47]:
Yes. Like please God help. But no, we just we wanted to take this time today to make sure that everyone like you know said going into new seasons, new holidays, new years, everything feels that there is a foundation underneath us all. And that Sandy and I are grateful to hopefully remind ourselves and remind everyone else to to really focus on that foundation being God. So we first wanna thank everyone for listening to Imagine Yourself podcast. We want to ask you to please share any episodes. Share this episode or whichever ones you feel might be a blessing to others. And thanks for continuing to listen.

Lanee Blaise [00:24:35]:
And imagine yourself quiet, still, humble, kind, and surrendering as you focus on God, as you look and lean into all the beautiful ways and thoughts and aspects that God has just for you. Be blessed.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:01]:
So appreciate you spending some time with us. Just know our listeners are always in our prayers, and we hope that you'll pray for us. Here's to a wonderful holiday season, New Year, and beyond, and we hope you'll connect with us on social media and at imagine yourself podcast.com. All the links in the show notes.