dailydatewithgod

God is pure. God is unrefined. God is essence.  We look at the world for all its color and grandeur and there are lots of it.  We are dazzled by flashiest and celebrity.  We are amazed by grand gestures of ceremony and supernatural feats.  It is as though are eyes are meant to see only the spectacular and the exciting.  They get our juices flowing. Those who are living examples of amazement inspires us.  It makes us want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves so that we can experience being the magnificent.  But each of those moments and people started out from a simple space and time.  They were once the purest form of their expression.  A human being taking a breath.  A planted seed.  A team running around the field.  A performer showing up for practice.  If we are not present to the moment we are in we will not be present for the moment in which the result or progress occurs.  We may not value the beauty of the inspiring if we do not show up for the breath that brings about the ultimate demonstration of miraculous.  My experience has taught me that God marvels in our usualness as much as our magnificence.  If we were to embrace ourselves the same way it would mean many moments of inspiration and miracles.  When I have my date time with God it starts by centering myself and slowing my breath.  Each day God is there to greet me as though my attention to the simplest part of being alive draws God closer.  Never before have I had such value placed on the usualness of being alive.  My prayer for us today is a willingness to see the usual elements of our lives as the magnificence of being alive and know it is enough.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God believes.  God is certain. We are seen with the eyes of the One that perceives our full capabilities.  God never knows us as anything less than our greatest potential. That is the truth and wisdom we were endowed with at the moment of our creation.  Our life consists of reconnecting with the truth of who we are.  We take on stories to explain our experiences that do not resonate with our true hearts.  These stories often take on a life of their own and we get lost in them.  We believe they are who we truly are.  We lose touch with the potential that lies deep within us that has been there from the beginning.  Letting go of our stories becomes the spiritual work that reconnects us with God and with our potential for love.  My prayer for us today is a willingness to believe that deep within us lies the potential for great love that has always been there.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is our root.  We were created from God and we flourish when we are connected to our roots.  When we are in a space of grounding we become an extension of our roots.  We can never be uprooted from God, but we can decide whether or not we want to deepen our roots.  We mistakenly think that we are meant to out grow our roots but why would we want to separate from that which nourishes us so completely?  We can flower and create shape while still being rooted.  We can grow tall and strong while still being rooted.  Most importantly when we are firmly rooted we are not easily swayed by things that happen around us.  We know that we can always draw upon the strength of our roots by grounding ourselves.  It sounds like a description for farming trees but nature always gives us insight into how to be in relationship with God and with life.  A tree never frets about how it will get water.  A flower never freaks out that it is not appealing enough for a bee to pollinate it.  We see ourselves as separate because we have higher developed minds but that is just our ego’s perception. All of God’s creation are designed to point us in the direction of living in harmony and oneness with God.  If we look at those elements of God’s creation that are physically rooted we get an idea of what it means to be grounded and fully connected with Our Creator.  My prayer for us today is an openness to seeing the beauty of embracing our rootedness in the love of Our Creator.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is real. God is firm.  We can unabashedly rely on the reality of God if for no other reason than the presence of our own breath.  We can call it a million different things, but God, Spirit, Infinite Intelligence is always present in the substance of our breath.  It is our breath that centers us, calms our nervous systems, allows us to take one more step, get through a difficult moment, and know that there is something more there.  The physical reality of God is present in so many forms but in our breath it comes intimately close to us.  It circulates through our whole being. It comes into contact with every cell.  It is life itself.  God is simple and gentle in our breath that we hardly recognize it.  We take it for granted until we find ourselves without it.  My prayer for us today is an awareness of the presence of the substance of God in one of our breaths.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is Brilliant!  God is Audacious!  We think that we have an understanding of God that we can rely upon and then we have an experience where we feel like God is absent.  We find ourselves frustrated, let down, and hurt. Perhaps we feel angry and resentful towards God, the individuals, and the institutions who passed on the idea that God can be relied upon.  I have had many of those experiences in my life.  To top it off I judged myself as being a bad girl because I was angry with God for what I perceived as abandonment.  In developing this dating relationship with God I have come to understand things differently. For example, I had to let go of the notion that I could conceive of how God is completely in my mind. From there I was willing to look again at what had occurred in those moments of abandonment and disappointment.   I had to ask God where He/She/It was in those most needed times and be open to what answers might come. Then and only then was I able to hear what my heart knew all along.  I began to see that when I boxed God in to my perception of what God is supposed to be I was always going to come up short.  In order to mature in a relationship with God I think we all have to come to those questions. God is endowed with a pluckiness for life of all creation.   God will stand courageously with us as we ask those questions and wait in the quiet patient spaces as the answers come.  My prayer for us today is a willingness to trust in the pluckiness of God as we demonstrate an earnest attempt at engaging in mature conversations with God.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is fun.  God is joy. Its seems too simplistic to think of God in such elemental ways, but then again if God was only what we perceive God to be it would be limited.  We can only create in our minds something that is connected to something with which we already are familiar. In order to go beyond that we need to surrender the notion that we alone can conceive of every possibility.  It is a surrendering of our ego mind to admit that we can conceive of every possibility.  In my experience while I may fight admitting that I don’t know at first, it is usually a relief.  To not have it all figured out allows for a breath, a moment to be, and a chance to play at life.  The author, Florence Scovel-Shin wrote a book called “The Game of Life and How to Play It.”  She speaks of connecting with the Spirit of All That Is which has infinite power.  The notion that one might be able to play at life because one does not have to be so bogged down by having it figured out goes hand in hand.  Life is much easier when I don’t have to know things I don’t know.  Life is filled with grace when I  give myself permission to learn and try things out.  Life is joyful when I can play at being.  If my intention is to learn and to grow then I can’t do it wrong, but I get to make adjustments.  My prayer for us today is an openness to the idea of learning to play at this game of life.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is pure.  God is whole.  God is sacred.  We too are pure, whole, and sacred but we have forgotten our roots.  We have opted to identify with the experiences we have in this life as who we are.  However, at the core of our being resides a oneness of love that surpasses all understanding.  This is the place where God breathes truth and light.  Every breath is an invitation to take hold of this oneness into our entire being.  In doing so, we embark on a state of being inspired by love.  From this state of pureness, wholeness, and sacredness we see things as God sees things.  We recognize the futility of our stories and are able to see them as simply a story we layered on top of who we truly are to make sense of the world as best as we could.  God calls us to embrace the vision of us that God always has of us no matter how many extra layers we have accumulated.  This is the sanctification process and our return to love.  My prayer for us today is a willingness to embrace the sanctification process by letting go of our stories and returning to love.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God provides. God ensures.  God gives.  We go through life making things happen and working for what we have.  We begin to believe that we can do it all on our own.  We are self-starters.  We pick ourselves up and go at it again.  We push through.  We engage.  But where does this energy to live and thrive come from? Is it really just our doing?  Perhaps we are driven by a spirit within us so deep in our true self that we do not make the distinction between what is God-driven and what is self-driven.  If we propel ourselves by only our own strength we will burn out.  We will reach a point at which we are no longer able to retain the nourishment needed to keep growing in love.  God is that nourishment. God is the design of our hearts that keeps hoping against hope.  Love is the life-sustaining nourishment that breathes in us when we do not think we can get back up, make anything happen, or think we have lost hope.  My prayer for us today is the courage to turn to God to ask for the nourishment we need in the moment to sustain our life of hope.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is present everywhere and every time even in the in-between times.  When we experience those moments where it seems like nothing is happening we tend to assume that our perception is correct.  We are looking only at the physical reality.  But given that there is more than just what is physically present that could not possibly be true.  God is aware of and operates in the spiritual realm as well as the physical.  In order to be in touch with what is happening in those gap moments we need to let go of needing to see things happening.  Trusting that God is fully present in those non-happening moments calls us to be in the present moment.  Trusting God to be present in the gaps invites us to focus on the process not the end result.  In the process we have an opportunity to grow, to fine tune what is important to our hearts, and to just be.  My prayer for us today is an awareness of gaps in our lives as invitations from God to be in the process of life.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God of Eternal Enlightenment delights in our recognition of his role in our lives.  When we stop and affirm for ourselves that All That Is has bestowed upon us we can bask in the light of love.  When we bask in the light of love we are living our full lives.  Our potential becomes limitless because it is connected too All That Is.  The simple act of acknowledgment is our ticket to peace and freedom.  First we acknowledge where we are mentally and physically in the moment.  Then we ask God for the courage to find something to be grateful for in the moment we are in. It isn’t always easy to stop and ask to notice what we can be thankful for but the practice of doing so builds on itself.  After a while of practicing this we begin to see things from the perspective of gratitude in all areas of our lives. My prayer for us today is an openness to learning what me might be grateful for in any given situation we encounter.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen