dailydatewithgod

One of the ways God speaks to us is through an awakening.  We are able to see something we could not see before.  We wake up with a new insight.  We experience the dawning as though we have access to a part of our mind we did not have before.  It seems as though it appears out of nowhere, much like light out of the darkness when the sun rises.  However, much like the dawning of a new day it does not happen suddenly.  There are usually forces involved way before which lead up to it. The earth is turning around the sun all night so when it is visible on our end it is not like a light switch that was turned on.  The dawning of insight into an area of our lives is preceded by events and decisions which facilitate its happening.  Perhaps we come to a space of surrender or acceptance.  We might release an idea attached to this or ask God to help us see things differently.  This occurs over time and when the moment is ripe, the dawning happens.  The brilliance of experiencing a dawning is in the power to receive it.  By the time it comes, we have let down our guard or decided to put it aside for a time.  So when the dawning hits us it feels profound and illuminating because we have emptied ourselves and are ready to incorporate it fully.  The dawning stays with us because it is not just something that sparks and then burns out.  Our hearts are primed and ready to breathe it in.  It is the realization that what is before us is a whole new opportunity, just like a new day.  I have not found a way to create a formula to create more dawning so I can distinguish when something will stick and is worth letting go to create a space for dawning.  I suppose if I did I would not need God.  Needing God is the only formulaic element I have encountered..  When I am able to express to God my lack of power, frustration, or willingness to admit I cannot think my way out of something; I have made a step in the direction toward dawning.

We are very good at convincing ourselves about things which go along with our core beliefs even if at the outset by themselves we would not go along with them.  It is actual phenomena known as confirmation bias.  Typically as humans when we are presented with contrary evidence we will believe our original belief more emphatically.  There is a certain level of deception operating within us to be able to turn a blind eye to information that clearly refutes what we believe.   It is a protection mechanism and serves a purpose for our survival.  These days it gets in the way of open and sincere communication options.  It puts up barriers between people and causes them to stop engaging in conversation with anyone other than with whom they know they agree.  It is disheartening to see this happen on the grand scale in which it seems to be occurring.  God invites us to begin with sincerity of heart as we approach ourselves and then others.  When we spend time together on our date, God brings in the light of truth. This light allows me to take a look with the warmth of love at what I might be deceiving myself about.  Sincerity begins by acknowledging that it is happening.  The next step is to identify how it is benefiting me to lean into deception versus sincerity. God does not chastise me. God simply encourages all of us to notice what is working for us and against us.  If living in deception is something I need at the moment, I have a choice to accept it or not.  Then I can look at if it is allowing me to use the full power and capacity of my heart.  Sincerity comes from the space of the heart.  Deception operates in the mind.  When we take the time to pause and check in we can create the bridge between the heart and the mind.  God is there to guide us in this process. God knows we can operate more in alignment with the truth of who we are when we do so with sincerity.

When we step out into the sunlight of the day we are hit with the power and the illumination of the sun.  We revel in the beauty and energy it provides our planet.  Our whole lives are built around when the light of the sun is available.  IF we go too long without it we are deprived of nutrients.  If we are exposed to it too much we get burned.  The reason we are affected by it is because we are a part of creation as a whole. The same Creator who designed the cells in our bodies set up the orbit of the planets.  God orchestrated their interplay and so we are affected by it and we affect the system of creation.  To deny this would be to deny part of the truth of who we are.  When we are functioning at our truest level from our hearts our energy contributes positively to the world around us.  It is not just what we say or do.  It is the intention behind it and taking responsibility for what we are creating.  The prime way we know we have an effect is because we can create.  We take ideas and make them happen.  We engage with others and the natural world and things shift.  This is not an accident.  God designed us to be interactive with each other and the world around us.  We are a creation and we can create.  If we take the invitation of life seriously, we will know in our hearts we make an impact.  It is about choosing to do so in a way which contributes to the greater good.  When we connect with our Creator and choose to see ourselves as God sees us, we can create from a place of love.  It is up to us to own the creation we are and create from that reality.

When we have a moment of clarity in which light is shined upon something that only seemed to hang out in the dark we have a decision to make.  Sometimes we draw comfort from not knowing.  We can continue to operate as we always have and do not need to engage in discomfort so we don’t mind the lack of lucidity.  This very human behavior stands in stark contrast to a world expounding the idea we are valued by how much we know.  Especially when it comes to lucidity in areas of our lives that people do not normally talk about, we definitely think darkness is our best bet.  We are certain if it were to be brought to the light others would pounce on it and condemn us.  On my daily dates with God I have begun to see the areas of darkness are only dark because of the glasses through which I am viewing them. When I use the eyes of my heart, lucidity is the best option. God creates us with the courage to bring the light to the darkness. God dwelling in our hearts does not seek to condemn what lucidity unveils.  If we are to trust God is a power greater than ourselves, then we are invited to hold the possibility that God’s view of darkness is different from ours.

We do not realize the power of the connections with have with other people.  Biologically on an unconscious level we are designed so it is not even a choice that we make to stick close to those whom we know. The attachment creates a level of safety so we are able to grow and develop on all levels.  Then there comes the time to step way from the tribe and see ourselves as distinct from one another.  We are called in maturity to detach from others so we can align ourselves with who we are designed to be.  To make a contribution as the gift of who we are to the world we need to know ourselves separately.  It feels like a contradiction to detach from those we feel most at home with but it is ultimately in greater service to be fully who we are and love them from that place.  The place where we are aligned with our creator and not attached to anything of this world means we are operating from the power of love which is knows no bounds.

There are many gifts which we do not see as gifts.  They come in wrapping that looks like garbage or something that needs to be given to good will.  If it is given to us we want to reject it because all we see is the outer covering.  There are no pink ribbons or sparkly wrapping paper.  They show up as people who irritate us or tell us what to do.  They show up as experiences that if given the option we would have skipped them all together.  That doesn’t look like fun let alone a gift!  What is God thinking?  Why in the world would anyone call engaging in this experience or interaction a gift?  In my experience unwrapping the deterring packaging of incest and obesity is that the gift is what comes from the process of looking underneath the wrapping.  Ultimately, we discover who we are, what we are capable of, and that we are the gift.  We begin to know ourselves as God does and recognize that we are not tarnished by the wrapping.  The gift we are is still inside of us.  Nothing that happens to us can ultimately transform the gift God has made us to be.  Not even the things we take on ourselves.  I know this one all too well.  I spent many years trying to hurt myself with food.  Yet no amount of pizza and cookie dough to compound the self-hatred and disgust with my body made a dent in the beautiful soul of light and life that lives within my heart.  I had to do my part and be willing to walk through the uncomfortableness of what it would be like without all that wrapping.  I had to want to find a gift in the mess. God was the whispered heart beat that kept me inching in that direction so that one day I would have the courage to open up.  The reason I go on my daily dates with God is it is easy for my mind to pull me back into thinking I am the wrapping.  God leads me back to my heart every time, no questions asked, enabling me to see the gift of love and light alive and well within me.

The gracious part about a daily relationship with God is it enables me to verify to my questioning mind the consistency of God.  There is no question of God’s everlasting presence except in my head sometimes.  Because we live in an ever-changing world full of duality the way God operates seems to not match.  How could a being possibly be there at every turn?  Isn’t it in our nature to abandon?  It may be in our nature, but God is not our nature.  Verifying that God does not operate in the same way keeps me coming back to my heart.  My heart is always beating. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow.  It pushes the nourishment provided by my breath through my system to keep it going.  I do not often stop to think about it or verify it, but it continues.  God is the same way.  Often times when we see God as a being that cares from a distance or who does not really seem to show up, what we are experiencing is human.  We easily place human qualities on God.  Yet God is not capable of existing in just human form.  God embodies the very essence of love which holds no boundaries.  Verifying how God thinks can be done as easily as recognizing what is the flip side of how I think.  I can ask myself a simple question: is what I am experiencing an opportunity to know love or grow in love?  If the answer is yes, I am in the space of verifying God’s presence.  If the place I am in is pushing love away or seeing everything as other or separate, I am stuck in human perspective.  Taking a step back allows for the verification of God’ perspective which allows more breathing room and more life.

I have noticed in conversation the idea of extending oneself divulges into over-extending oneself.  People are advised to not extend themselves because they can quickly become overextended.  But it does not just happen.  Extending is part of our nature.  It is both touching a greater area as well as being a gift to someone.  As human beings, creations of the designer of love, we are meant to be extending as a part of our inherent nature.  If we never extend ourselves we cannot move, we will not engage, we will shut down and become constricted.  Even a heart beating is extending itself by moment to moment becoming more expansive in size.  Breathing extends our life and our ability to speak and sing.  Using our limbs is a way of extending our presence. The idea that we are over-extending ourselves is about putting ourselves out past the point of still being connected to our core.  It depletes our energy, our ability to know our purpose, and ends up hindering the extending we were attempting in the first place.  God did not design us to lose connection with our own hearts when being kind to others.  If we are hurting ourselves by taking care of others we have stepped into over-extending our hearts.  God invites us to always remain rooted in the truth of who we are.  We are designed to extend that to others but not at the expense of losing ourselves.  God knows us to be the extension of love created out of love.  When we walk rooted in this reality we can extend much past what we think we are capable of because our hearts are connected to our Creator.  Over-extending is us taking ourselves out of the range of our own design.

We come across ideas or experiences that we just cannot wrap our heads around.  No matter which angle we look from, it does not make sense. There seems to be a missing piece.  No matter how hard we try, we simply cannot fathom the reality expressed through the idea or experience.  We look for more evidence, we ask more people, and ultimately we find ourselves giving up on ever understanding.  Then in the moment of surrender there is an avenue which opens us up to a new perspective.  The fathoming occurring in moments such as these is the perspective of the heart.  Only when we have exhausted our minds and played it over and over that we let down our guard and our heart is able to get a word in edge-wise.   What previously seemed unfathomable is brought to light.  Often we are dumbfounded and wonder how we did not see it before.  It is a beautiful moment of enlightenment which only a breath before seemed dark and cloudy.  This is how God works in our lives.  It is party of the mystery of love and light.  It is the opportunity to take part in the story of love as written by our Creator.  Given that God knows our hearts before we even know we have them or what they can do, I am inclined to walk through the strange process of fathoming. The path of fathoming shows my willingness to engage in the mystery and the hope to strengthen my heart’s awareness.  It is a leap of faith to trust in God’s timing also known as the timing of my heart.  After many years of daily dates with God it is not less of a risk but I have never been disappointed when the fathoming kicked in.

Because we have so much coming at us all the time, most of gets filtered out.  If we had to process everything that came into our awareness we would be exhausted.  It is incumbent upon us to pause and observe what is happening. It is another layer of not letting it in but just looking at it.  It is a degree of separation before we feel we have to react to something.  When we are observing we are making note of something but not getting hooked into the story which is the meaning we make of it. Our power in owning the story of our lives begins when we choose to observe something before buying into it.  It makes sense when dealing with things outside of us but what about what is happening in our own minds?  How many of us stop and simply observe the thoughts that run through our head or the feelings that we sense in our bodies?  It may sound too simplistic but we give ourselves room to choose when we pause and observe.  We can evaluate things from different angles. Even if we do get hooked and believe the thought or the feeling by a commitment to observing we can back ourselves out of it before taking action.  On my daily dates with God, it is a time to observe without judgment.  God does not judge our thoughts or feelings and encourage us to do the same.  By observing we can notice patterns and well-formed systems that we do not realize are going on inside of us.  When the theme running behind the story of an event is showing up again and again we are given insight into a belief we have about ourselves.  If we take time observing the story as the writer instead of the main character, we are able to give ourselves some space.  This space of the breath allows us to choose whether or not we want to continue with the same story or create a new one.