dailydatewithgod

God is often described as everlasting.  The reality is that there is no place where God ends and something else begins.  Love is the very essence that contains all of existence and non-existence.  The continuity factor is what allows God not to be dismayed by our ability to continue to show up.  God is a power greater than us by the sheer fact that God never runs out of energy. God is energy.  God never goes away. God grows more and more as we become more open to the possibility of love showing up in our lives as love does.  As we are able to let go of our preconceived notions of what God is and what love is, the more we ready ourselves to be overtaken by the continuity of the presence of love.  In this continuity of presence we learn what it means to love.  We do not have to define who we are by the expectations of the world or our heads alone.  The continuous nature of God means that whenever we choose to let go of worldly ideas of who we are or should be, God is ready to show us who we are in God’s eyes. The opportunities are always present and will continue to be as long as God is God.  We can step into the continuity or we can dip our toes in but it flows like a river

When a picture, poster, painting or the like are important to us we frame it.  Framing creates a boundary and makes the item stand out. We are drawn to the most elaborately framed items in a museum.  In some cases the frame is as much a piece of the art as that which it is framing.  God is the framing of our hearts.  Love is the framing of our lives. Light is the framing of life.  When we frame our thinking in the context of a conversation, it keeps us in the here and now.  When we are paying attention to something that is framed, we are not busy trying to figure out what is not in the frame.  God encourages us to begin framing our lives based on our design.  The beauty of who we are as beings created by God is framed in love.  By our consistent attention to the tendering of our hearts we are able to live what we are meant to live within the framing of our lives.  The love within our hearts which we begin to attune to through our breath provides us with the insight and the tools we need when connect to our mind to be the best version of ourselves.  The framing of our lives is designed by God as the essence of our being.  God is happy to receive all that does not fit inside the framing of love and show us how to use it to make the picture of our lives stand out even more as evidence of love.  We are often so busy keeping it from showing up around the framing, we drain the energy from the true picture of our lives. God is the artist of creation and uses all of life to share beauty.  If we want to be in the framing of love as God designed it might help to allow God to show us what it means to live fully in the frame.

For most of my life I believed in the idea of God rescuing me.  Most of my prayers were me pleading God to get me through this or show me what to do all in an effort to exit the experience I was having.  After many years of daily dates with God I realized my perception of God had shifted.  I no longer was seeking God to rescue me but to remind me I was not alone in whatever circumstance I was in.  I was willing to trust that the peace of God’s presence would provide the refuge needed to connect with the spirit of truth within me.  Through that cleared connection and the support of God, I would be able to discern what my role was in whatever situation I was in.  God is the refuge under which the truth of me cannot be maimed, scarred, broken, or destroyed.  It is kept in sacredness by the truth of who God is.  As long as I am able to connect in some way to that truth I do not need to exit out of situations.  I can be with feelings, I can be with discomfort, and I can be with my stinking thinking without needing someone or something to rescue me. In the refuge of the power of God in my heart I can expand it beyond what I think it is capable of.  I can grow and learn to bring my heart and the love within it fully to people and situations I previously had nothing but contempt for.  That goes for those within me and outside of me.  My faith in God is not as a rescuer but as refuge when I cannot of myself manage to be where I am in the moment.  God is always in the moment and is happy to have my company when I so choose.

God’s goal is us.  What is our goal?  Are we aiming for God?  Is love the intention?  God invites us to take a look at what is moving us in whatever direction we are moving in.  It is not about having the answers or being perfect in keeping God in mind as we move through our day-to-day lives.  It is a question of where is the movement and intention coming from.  Our hearts are designed to aim for God.  Our hearts know and remember what created them.  Aiming for God is the natural inclination of the energy of our hearts.  The more in tune with the intention of our hearts the more we will discover ourselves aiming for God in every avenue of life without trying.  It begins and ends with our breath.  It can help to place our hands on our hearts as we go through the day.  It can be a reminder to notice if what we are aiming for in the moment is in alignment with our hearts or not.  God is there to remind us as often as needed that aiming for God is the peace we are searching for throughout our whole system.

We pride ourselves on knowing the answer.  We think certainty is what is needed.  If we just knew what would happen then we would be willing to engage.  Unfortunately, this is not how life works.  We find out who we are when we step forward and get into the throes of life. Some of our steps are taken with initiative and certainty but many are faltering. We have some hesitation even when we don’t want to admit it.  The funny part is as much as we convince ourselves that we know in our heads exactly how things are going to go, we don’t.  We base our knowing on the past.  It is an effective strategy to make a move forward even when if we are completely honest we might be a little hesitant.  But what happens when our past has not yet shown us who we truly are? God does not falter when it comes to the confidence to handle whatever comes.  It is this same faith, despite our faltering which God encourages us to embrace.  Do we believe, enough to rely upon God, that no matter what happens, we will grow from it?  Over the years, I have learned that my faltering can come just as often from the worry that I will not be able to handle what happens.  Or I might falter because I am concerned about what others would think of me.  Learning from my daily dates to keep my eyes on what God thinks of me, I see I have little reason to falter.  I do not need to be certain about the outcome, I only need be certain about God and how God sees the outcome.  I have heard it said many times: Don’t tell God how big your problems are, tell your problems how big your God is.

I have learned in my short time on this planet that the world makes a big to do about our goals and plans. Our spirit and soul make a big to do about the process.  Our goals are usually sparked by our interests and desires which come from within us. From those desires we form goals about what we want, what we hope for, and look at how we can make them happen.  Thus begins the process.  Because life is always in session and from God’s perspective we are here to learn, our progression towards the goal also shapes who we are becoming.  According to the outside world, we are only defined by the achievement or lack of achievement of the goal.  How we are showing up and what we are growing from on the way to achieving develops is what God is concerned about.  They both play an integral role in who we are being in our lives.  If we did not have a goal there would be no process of getting to the goal.  God is there within our hearts when we connect to the creation of what the goal is as well as the shaping of our spirit in the process of working towards the goal.  No matter what we are actually doing and experiencing in the world, God’s goals for us are to be the manifestation of the love we are.  We can measure how far or close we are to achieving our goal by knowing how close or far we are from being aligned with love at any moment in the process.

There is an elevated sense of presence when we are watching something versus seeing something.  Watching conveys a level of active participation. We pay babysitters to watch our children not see them.  So why when it comes to God we focus on us seeing God and God watching us?  Maybe our experience of God would shift if we flipped the roles. If we took an active role in watching for God and how God shows up in our lives we might find ourselves witnessing the multitude of ways God shows up.  Perhaps by taking the reigns of watching away from God, we would not fear what it is we think God will find.  We could come out of hiding ourselves from God.  We might be willing to be seen by God and let go of feeling watched by God.  If we open ourselves to watching for God, we can adjust our vision and learn to see as God sees.

The grandeur of God is found in the simplicity of love and love’s every day expressions.  It is easy for us to look for the big events and overtures for signs of importance and value.  We do not often see the profound and sacred nature of a simple interaction with another human being.  I am reminded often that the world is big and loud and my ego is drawn to that.  It tells me the little stuff doesn’t matter, especially if no one but me sees it.  But how many hearts are needed to be witnesses to love and be affected by it?  Why do we not see the hallowing in eye contact and a kind touch on the hand?  Is not love enough within itself that any expression of it make the experience hallowed?  What would it take to make hallowing an everyday multiple times a day occurrence?  God sees all presences of love as hallowing.  What blinders do we have on that we take it for granted?  What would we need to let go of to be present to the hallowing love brings in the small and seemingly innocuous ways? Maybe it is just not as hard as we make it out to be.  God has designed us out of love and the reason we know a hallowing experience when it happens is because of the recognition of ourselves in it. If we are open to the many ways love shows up that are outside our expectations, the more hallowing events we will witness.

Many spiritual people, including myself, have refered to themselves as seekers.  It presents the idea of a continual process.  It gives the impression we are looking for something we do not already have.  I think of it as more of a process of reconnecting.  It is about moving in the direction of revealing what lies under the layers of what is not our true essence to reconnect to what has been there all along.  It can be prompted by searching and finding elements of this experience outside ourselves.  Ultimately it is the connection within us to the thing or idea outside of us that opens the door to seeing what we had not seen before.  God is basically hiding in plain sight.  It is not until we let go of what we think God is and begin seeking to find God as God does will we see again.  It involves turning inward and sitting through the noise that arises when we get quiet.  It means not abandoning ourselves when we see a side of ourselves we do not like revealed in someone else.  God does not make it hard to seek him. She delights in the reconnecting with us.  We are the ones who make it more complicated because in our minds we think of God as being so vast and multifaceted that it must be complicated.  We have forgotten in our seeking that God does not need us to understand God.  God just wants to be with us in our hearts and is waiting for the invitation to reveal love.

The boundless nature of God’s love is within us because it is how we were created.  It is hard for us to imagine such infinitude because it cannot be conceived of by our minds.  Our hearts know it as the music to which they beat and the rhythm of the flow of information it sends out.  It is the notes to which the music of our life’s energy is orchestrated.  If we are able to admit our inadequacy to understand the infinitude present in our lives, we can open our hearts to it.  Our minds are well-meaning and always want to be in the know.  Mine certainly does.  It feels uncertain to not understand something.  It is likely to feel vulnerable and uncomfortable to be moved by a force within our hearts that our mind does not comprehend.  Yet in the surrender of the need to know and understand we get to be in the moment with fullness.  Just for the brief breath of the moment in time, the infinitude of love can hold us and carry us through to the next breath.  It takes faith and the belief that God is for us, not against us.  For some of us, we cannot begin to touch the infinitude of love until we let go of the idea of a God who is against us or waiting for us to mess up.  When we are ready to do so, the true nature of God will spring up from the infinitude of energy present in our hearts and we will know it with every fiber of our being.