dailydatewithgod

We are witnesses of the Glory of God.  Through us at every moment there is an ultimate expression of love.  We are here to send the message through our lives that love always wins.  God gifts us with the remembrance of that knowledge when we invite God into our hearts and minds.  This reality has never not been present for us,  it is only that we have lost touch with it.  The world we live in focuses a lot on what is not working, what is wrong, and how we are broken and in need of fixing.  From this perspective we are missing something.  God knows us to be complete and whole.  God approaches us from that perspective and if we are to live as God calls us to live we must be willing to embrace this truth.

My prayer for us is the willingness to let go of the stories that we have taken on that buy into the lie that we are broken and take a deep breath this day and allow God’s truth of our completeness sink into our hearts.

If you are complete life becomes about what you are here to do versus what needs to be fixed.  If God could remind you today of your completeness, how would you like to be reminded? Share in the comments.

As we wake up to the reality of who we really are in God’s eyes our perspective on ourselves and the world around us begins to change.  Prior to consistently dating God, my perspective was that of a victim.  I didn’t recognize it as such only because I was so invested in it being my reality.  I was not able to open up to a different perspective because I did not think it was possible.  At 20 years old I decided that maybe life just didn’t get any better. I was physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally run down.  I was attending college and had moments of being okay and genuinely connecting with others but deep down my sense of self was rooted in the idea that there was something wrong with me.  The unconscious tapes that were running through my head were painful.  I had some spiritual experiences that allowed me to see that there was more than meets the eye, but nothing that stuck.  It went on like that for about another 8 years before I found truly willing to go down another path.  It had to get worse before it got better.  I do know that deep down below what I thought was my reality there was a light that would not go out.  That spark of God’s light would not go out. No matter how much I was abandoning me, God would not abandon me even when I perceived that God had.  I am grateful today for getting to the place of desperation only because it allows me to stay open to changing my perspective on a continual basis.  I know when I am facing something that I cannot understand or causes me pain, there is always another God-given perspective if I am open to allowing God to show it to me.

My prayer for us is the courage to ask God for God’s perspective on the situation that is causing us pain and suffering today.

 If you were open to the idea that God’s perspective is different from yours, how might it change what you experience as being painful in your life today?  Share in the comments.

God resounds beyond our comprehension.  God lives in the reality of infinite possibilities. We go by what we can see.  We limit our ideas and our perceptions by what we can wrap our minds around.  We tend to focus on the tangible evidence that we can see, hear, feel, and taste.  Beyond our physical senses we are able to tap into a reality that does not so easily bend to the limits of our mind.  In the realm of spirit, life is not limited by space, time, and form.  In Spirit’s eyes it is about the process and who we are being.  I have found on my dates with God that I am being led more and more to let go of the limits of my physical understanding of the world and be open to the endless alternatives that God sees.

My prayer for us is a curiosity to explore the alternative perspectives of one of our situations today and ask God how does God see it?

If there are alternatives to how you are currently understanding a painful experience, how could God open your eyes and your heart to them today?  Share in the comments.

The Creator of All has not only created us but gifted us with the same desire to create.  Do you remember as a kid how you loved to make things up?  You ask a group of children to make up a story and they jump on it.  They bring in characters and ideas seemingly out of nowhere.  They make connections and reasons for why certain things happen that are sometimes beyond a rational understanding and tell the story as though it were true.  As adults we think we lose touch with that part of ourselves. Have we really lost touch with it or do we keep it hidden?  What about the stories that we create about what things mean?  What about our imaginative ideas about why other people are behaving the way they are?  They also come from our imagination.  Then we throw in some commonly held beliefs, modify our stories to meet with the agreement of others, and see it as truth and not imagination.  The real truth is we do not know why people behave the way they do or what things always mean because there are always multiple factors occurring simultaneously.  We cannot  know all the reasons, so wet fill in the blanks with our imagination. Perhaps God has some life-giving options for our ingenuity if we are willing to involve God in the process.

My prayer for us is the acknowledgement of the beautiful gift of creation given to us by God and the humility in asking God to be involved the true ingenuity possible today.

If were to believe that God has gifted you with a creative imagination in a way that brought excitement and joy into life, how might you ask God to show you the possibilities inherent in your true ingenuity to create today?  Share in the comments.

The grandeur of God is something that we can connect to and be drawn into.  We are constantly being invited by God to embrace the love that is within our hearts. God knows it is there because it has been the seat of love for all creation.  Our design has the imprint of our creator and it is written on our hearts.  The idea that God is “up there” somewhere or at some height that we cannot reach is simply not true.  Why would God create us, place within our hearts the love of all we are, design us with a desire to connect with God and then be unreachable.  The height have to stretch to reach is that which tells us that God is simply “up there”.  The reaching for that height is an illusion.  We do not have to climb some allegorical mountain to prove that we have a right to exist. God is not outside of us.  God is in the midst of us in the constant rhythm of our being.

My prayer for us in the remembrance of God’s presence in our very being so that we do not have to climb to some illusionary height attempting to prove the worthiness of our existence today.

If you believed that God was within your own heart, accessible any time you tuned into the rhythm of your being, what height would you be able to  achieve in your being without striving today?  Share in the comments.

The love of God reaches places within us that we are not even aware of.  The depth of love that is in us calls to us quietly.  To hear the call we must gently step back from all the clamoring of the world and of our minds. I love to understand things.  It makes my brain happy to know something.  There is a sense of security that comes from knowing or is there?  One of the quintessential elements of God is mystery.  It is what keeps us engaged.  It is what engenders awe.  Mystery creates space for humility.  The mystery is not the existence of God, the mystery is how God will be revealed in the present moment.  Just because I show up in the same space and time every morning for our date, does not mean there is no mystery.  Quite the opposite.  I never know what God will press upon my heart, whisper in my ear, or what idea might be come out of my head.  I don’t know what will catch my breath, touch my heart, or cause me to not want to get up and get on with the rest of my day.  It is not a mystery that God will show up.  If I am breathing, I know God will be there.  For me, there is no where I have not found God, only places I might hope God will not be present because I am hiding.  Each date, however, God encourages me to reveal myself and extends a love that makes no sense to me.

My prayer for us is a willingness to embrace the mystery of how God will show up and remind us of the love that is within us.

If you knew you could rely on God being present wherever you are, what kind of mystery would you want to solve to unwrap the love in your heart today?  Share in the comments.

We open our eyes to a whole new world when we ask God to help see as God sees.  We awaken our hearts to the truest sense of reality when we ask God to align our thinking with God’s thinking.  We enliven our spirits when we surrender to the love that God has for us and recognize it as being with us at all times when we are willing to return to it.  I know that when I am walking through a difficult emotional experience, physical pain, or find my default mode as one of irritation, it is hard to remember the truth of who I am or anyone else for that matter.  I cannot by my own will make room for the sight of love because my perception is clouded by the outer appearance of things not being what I want them to be.  I need God’s help.  When I become attached to the form I forget that which created it.  When I become mesmerized by what I believe I will feel as a result of obtaining a certain outcome or having a certain thing, I forget to enjoy the journey.  I not so sure it is about not becoming attached or mesmerized or if that is possible, but rather about noticing when it happens and utilizing it as the opportunity to return to center.  I believe life is about learning and if humility is being teachable, then sometimes the most opportune time to learn is when I’ve gone somewhere my heart does not truly want to go.  When I wake up to the incompleteness of the form that I worked so hard to obtain, I am willing to take up God’s opportunity to learn a different way.

My prayer for us is a willingness to learn from all that happens in our lives and see those happenings as opportunities to be reminded to return to God today.

If we are given limitless opportunities to return to love, how might you like God to gently guide you back to your heart today?  Share in the comments.

God’s vision is beyond our understanding. Our vision is limited. Sometimes the most powerful prayer for me is, “God help me to see this as you see this.”  And in God’s fashion sometimes that happens automatically, other times it happens slowly over time.  My sight will sometimes shift so slowly that I don’t realize the shift has happened.  Then someone asks me a question that I have been asked a million times before and out of my mouth comes a completely different answer.  I find myself saying and doing things that seemed to baffle me before.  I am not bothered by a situation or afraid of something that I was sure would harm me.  It is as though God has changed my eyes.  There is a sense of peace in who I am being that was never there before.  I find myself feeling as though life really does happen for me, not to me.  This sight of life is the biggest gift of my dates with God.  I realized after a time that if I wanted to see more of how God saw me and the world around me, spending dedicated time with God as well as listening and learning from others who have done the same needed to take a priority in my life.  I do not understand God’s perspective nor do I think I ever will but as far as I am concerned as long as God is, I want to be a part of that vision.  It makes no sense that coming to a place of forgiveness for my father’s incestual actions is what has taught me to love.  It sounds ridiculous that I had to get to a place of killing my body with food and blow up to over 300 plus pounds to recognize the beauty and the sacredness of the vessel through which God has called me to live out this life. It does not matter that my mind could not envision either of those outcomes, God’s vision is greater.  It is God’s vision that has brought me to a place of peace that I did not experience until I asked to see it as God does.  Yet each time I reach another level of reconciliation of a different layer of either of these factors in my life I am right back to thinking it can’t be done.  So I come to God on our date, tell him so, and ask to see it differently.  And so, like C.S. Lewis said, “Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.”

My prayer for us is the courage to admit that God’s sight is greater than ours in situations big and small and all that we need is the willingness to ask to be lent His sight for today.

If you could have God’s sight on a source of grief or strife in your life, who might you be free to be today? Share in the comments.

 When we embark on the pathway of love by accepting our breath at the start of the day we are saying yes to life.  We are receiving the gift of the spirit to move through us and set us on the path.  The passageway that we embark upon is one filled with mystery, expectation, uncertainty, possibility, and learning.  If we want to pass through life to reach a place of peace and love we must be that on the passage of peace.  We cannot get there expecting ourselves to be something we have not become.  The destination is not about getting somewhere but realizing who we have become along the way. The passage through our lives are the stepping stones in a way of being.  We can choose which path to travel as we set out on our day.  If we veer off course we need not fear but use our breath to reunite us with spirit and get back on the path we want to be on.  I want to be on the path of peace not because it is the right thing to do but because when I am on it my passage I breathe easier, my heart is lighter, love seems real, and I am not looking behind me to see what I missed.

My prayer for us is as we start our day we use our breath to choose which passage to travel upon this day with open eyes and hearts so that we may experience ourselves as we truly are.

If whatever passage you chose there was an opportunity to get on one that showed you the love that you are, how many breaths would it take you to choose it for yourself today?  Share in the comments.

As we choose to focus our attention on growing each day in the knowledge and understanding love, we find ourselves many time in a day at a crossroads.  Our commitment to grow into the vision that God holds of us and knows of us to be true at any given moment is ours to resolve to live or not.  The beauty of this process of returning to the love that we are is that the stretch is not nearly as far and as hard as we perceive.  Part of the resolution to live as we are designed is to recognize that the biggest stretch is in the reality of our minds.  It is our perception that we are separate from God and therefore somehow different from God that makes us think it will take an act of God to get us to be in alignment with the truth of who we are.  My resolution for this day is  simply a request of God to help me see myself and others as God sees them.  Grant me the willingness to let go of my ideas of people, places, and things and be open to the truth of love that is taking place at every moment I resolve to see it.

My prayer for us is the resolution to ask for God’s help to make the step which seems like a leap into the acceptance of the truth of love that is already residing right before our eyes today.

If God is resolved to know and experience us as the love that we truly are, how might resolving to adopt God’s perspective in this day change your next few moments?  Share in the comments.