dailydatewithgod

The various creations of love provided by God on any given day are enough to make your head spin.  There are moments when I am fully present to the synchronicity of God’s presence in my life and times when I am frustrated because I want and need God to be obvious.  It is silly of me to think I can be the true determinant based on my perception of whether or not love is present at any given moment.  I suppose this is what is meant by blessings in disguise.  The very thing I cannot imagine being the presence of love is.  I believe this stems from my thinking love is something I should know.  Certainly I would recognize it if it were here.  But if God is greater than anything I can imagine perhaps I am staring love in the face and thinking it is fear.  Maybe the very thing that seems like the opposite of love is what is causing me to reach for the hand of God in search of love is the love itself.  I will not pretend to know how God plans to bring me to a greater awareness of love in my life, all I can do is be open. If I truly believe God is love and God is everywhere, then love must be everywhere even if in disguise. Two simple prayers I have learned to crack open the willingness to see love I think is not there are: God change my thinking.  God open the eyes of my heart. 

It is the simple gestures of being that sometimes create the greatest impact.  We live in a society very focused on the big changes and the massive displays.  Our eyes become attuned to the grand gestures and massive changes.  After a while we miss out the subtleties of human connection seen face to face or heard ear to ear.  God who speaks in the still small quiet voice calls us to show up in a big way in our lives by living out the simple genuine connections with each other and ourselves.  When we offer the face of God to another human being by mirroring their expression or countering their frown with a smile, we create the ripple effects of connection heart to heart.  It may not strike in our minds as a phenomenal experience but it can change the course of a day or a week.  The fluctuation of heart rhythms from person to person that can happen in an offering of kindness of gesture or word go beyond our ears and our eyes.  Their subtle value can touch the depths of our heart.  Just the other day I saw a young couple return from bringing their newly born child to a procedure room where they left their newest family in the hands of the doctors who assured them they would come back out as soon as the procedure was finished.  The look of compassion the husband offered his wife and the embrace he held her in touched my heart and I was standing on the other side of the room.  It may have appeared like a simple offering of kindness or perhaps an expected one, but its ripple effect sent the energy of the room to another place.

A sense of safety is integral to the capability to be present to love. Safety creates the grounding from which all humans are able to flourish.  When we know within ourselves we are safe we have the power to authentically express ourselves.  In our years of dates every morning, God has guided me to my heart through my breath.  God was pointing me to the untouched space of safety where the purest place of being is housed. In the space of love God reigns.  In God’s rule, safety is a given.  I grew up feeling very unsafe for many reasons and learned all kinds of mechanisms to get through despite this absence.  I had all the appearances of safety but it is not just an outside job.  When one feels safe they do not question whether they have the right to take up space on the planet.  We all know intrinsically what we need to establish a sense of safety from the inside out.  I did not know how and so I opted to encase my heart in steel and ice.  Safety not love was my primary goal.  On the outside I wasn’t cold but I kept people enough at a distance that they need try to penetrate the inner realm of my heart.  God has led me gently to soften my heart.  To let go of the anger and resentment and embrace the softness and sincerity of genuine love.  A love safely encased in my heart which cannot be damaged by outside occurrences. Once I connected to the safety of a relationship with God, I was willing to open myself up to the vibrancy of living from a space of love and joy one day at a time.

There is a lot happening in the world around us all the time.  It can be overwhelming if we stop to think about it.  We have been gifted with the natural ability to filter out information and notice only what is really need.  In addition we have the capability to choose what we pay attention to.  Those are the elements of our lives that grow.  What we focus on expands.  Which is why when we try to solve something by not thinking about it we sometimes think about it more.  A greater clarity comes when we recognize that only so much can be processed by our brain.  Usually when we have exhausted the resources of our mind, we turn to other’s minds and then back to our own.  God calls us to take our thinking and our focus into the minds of our hearts.  There with a quieter clarity we can hear a different voice.  It means we are running the show when it comes to our brain, not the other way around.  We are not victims of our thinking unless we choose to be.  We can be conquerors of our thought when we choose what to do with them.  Surrender to the heart can be the most powerful option for us in the moment.  God invites us to be open to what may come from letting go of the supposed domination of our brain and breathe into our heart.  It is something we can choose to do at a moment’s notice with simple deep breaths and a touch of our heart.  Drawing our attention there and away from the dominating thought in our brain, brings us into a space of possibility.