dailydatewithgod

God is known to us in our hearts.  God is known to us in our minds.  God is known to us in our every cell. We are privileged to live in a time where so much is known.  We have scientists and scholars who can explain the mysteries of life. There is so much to learn and comprehend about our experience. We spend years in schooling to garner this knowledge.  We obtain pieces of paper that tell the world how much time we have spent with our head absorbing the known ideas of others.  We go to people of knowledge and seek their advice on things.  These are all good things, but they have their limits.  Especially when we make ourselves wrong for not knowing.  The purpose of knowledge is not to place ourselves above or below others. The purpose of knowledge is growth.  For me some of the most growing experiences I have ever had were those in which I didn’t know anything of what I was getting into.  If I am unfamiliar with something I am more present.  If there is an unknown variable my senses are heightened.  If this brings with it fear, then I am turning and reaching for the hand of God (my true known) to walk through the door with me.  We bank our lives on familiarity and take things for granted.  When we open ourselves up to the unfamiliar we can be fully present and in gratitude for the opportunity to grow that exists in that moment.  My prayer for us today is that we measure our day by how many unfamiliar moments we can experience and see our own growth in love.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God created this world we live in, this universe of which we are an integral part with great love, great mercy, great kindness, great being.  God created it that way because God’s creation is an extension of himself/herself.  God does not create out of lack or confusion.  God creates because it is what Love is.  Love is about creating, being, sharing, and expanding.  God created everything that you are from this same space.  Just because you don’t feel majestic and kind, merciful and being in the moment does not mean you were created differently.  It just means you are disconnected from it at the moment.  We take on these identities of the world and they get layered on top of our hearts.  We wear them long enough and believe they are all that we are.  This is why it is so threatening to even think of letting them go.  To slow down long enough to listen to our hearts underneath all those layers.  When we have the courage to sit quietly with just ourselves we come face to face with the layers that we have taken on.  This can be alarming at first which is why we often run from it.  Part of our mission on this planet is to see those facades for their illusion of reality and embrace who we are at our core.  We think that if we slow down we will not be enough because we are not “doing” enough.  But when we stop, get quiet and spend time with our self, we are being.  God wants us to get to know the self that God created.  To do that we need to slow down long enough and just be.  My prayer for us today is that we take on the challenge of having moments of being instead of doing and see what it is about us that God is so crazy in love with.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God alone is our certainty! We have many things in our lives that we count on, but often without warning they slip away–people, ideas, structures, agreements, etc.  We often find ourselves devastated when they do because we rely on them as never-changing.  But the truth is that everything changes. The only thing that doesn’t change is God.  God is Love.  Love is constant.  Love is present.  As St. Paul says, “Love endures all things.”  When we experience the loss of the things that we thought were a certainty, we are given a gift. The gift is to come to terms with the spiritual truth that God is All That Is.  If we are connected with that, the things that come and go become the flow of life.  Our ego/physical self is the one that attaches to the “things” of this world.  We are in this world but not of this world.  I have yet to see a dying person be able to take anything with them when they pass–not even their physical body.  All we have is what is within us-our minds and our spirits.  My encouragement when I notice that things are “falling apart” around me and life seems uncertain, is the sense that I am being drawn to rely on the only certain thing which is present on our date every morning and throughout the day with each breath.  My prayer for us today is that we choose not to fear when we realize an uncertainty and instead embrace it as an invitation to draw closer to the Certain One.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is the essence of perfection!  By default then, everything that God creates is perfection.  God cannot be less than who God is.  The world’s interpretation is often something that works on automatic pilot-no being required.  God’s idea of existing is being, breathing, moving, flowing, learning, and growing.  There is no one way to be or feel or be present, there is only the opportunity to do so.  The notion that we are not perfect comes from the world’s view of results only.  God is about the process and the being.  We cannot undo the true essence of our being which comes from God which is perfect.  Are there times when we are not aligned with our highest good or our truest self?  Of course, everyone has “off” moments or times when we act from our ego instead of our heart.  This does not change who we are at our core.  God is a power greater than ourselves. Nothing we say or do can change God.  God help me to see me as you see me.  God help me to remember the love from which I was created and be from that space instead of something less than that.  These are the prayers that I use to bring myself back when I forget to be from who I am at the core. We are no less created from a God of love because we forgot it. My prayer for us today is that we spend less time focusing on what the world’s view of perfection is and just be the perfection that we are by being with our Creator.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Reality is one of the most beautiful gifts that we can participate in.  Life seems to be a continual lesson of either accepting reality or not.  For a long time from the victim perspective I could not accept reality because it seemed as though one bad thing would happen after another.  I could not accept reality because there was so much I wanted to change about me and my circumstances and felt powerless to do so.  I was powerless because I was relying on my power alone.  It is with God that I am able to make changes to long-standing thoughts and behaviors.  It is with the power of All That Is that I am able to accept reality and embrace its gifts, no matter the packages they come in.  When I am in acceptance there is the gift of surrender.  Surrender as in going to the winning side–the side that accepts that when I am fighting reality I am not doing anything other than wanting to stay in fantasy.  Sometimes I cannot accept what is happening right here, right now.  So, I am honest with God: This sucks, show me how to see this.  Just so you know I don’t like this but I am willing to let go of my idea of how it should be and be open to how I might grow from this.  Or my favorite: I cannot accept this as it is right now, but I can accept that I don’t accept it.  This allows me the space to be authentic and open to what is possible.  Then I am truly in the reality of my heart, mind and spirit.  The grace this gives me is the willingness to not abandon myself into some fantasy.  Instead I am choosing to live life on life’s terms and see things as God sees them, not just as I see them.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to be honest with ourselves and with God about our level of acceptance in the moment and give ourselves the gift of not trying to fight reality.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is ever-engaging, ever-relating, and ever-loving!  God invites us to the oneness of life by creating us from the oneness of love.  We are part of the whole.  We are not separate. That is a belief that we take on when we embody a physical material reality.  We only think we are separate.  In the Course in Miracles it says we have only one problem, the belief that we are separate from God.  From that extends all our other problems.  St. Augustine of Hippo relays the same idea when he says “our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”  We have this longing to return to the wholeness, the oneness that we know in our spirits.  One could argue that this the mission and the purpose we are called to in this life–to remember who we are one of the whole.  This is why we only hurt ourselves when we continue to go along with the idea of others being different or separate from us.  It does not hurt the other person when we are angry with them, it hurts us because who we are being is estranged from the heart of oneness with us and the other person.  The good news is that it is just a thought that is repeated and we can choose to take on other thoughts and repeat them.  My prayer for us today is that we offer up one of our ideas of how we are separate to God and ask for the courage to embrace the oneness and connectedness that we do not see with our human eyes.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

In the vastness of space that we call this universe there runs a power that is beyond our understanding. This power is what enables the seemingly impossible to happen. That power is God.  That power is love.  We get glimpses of it all of the time but often we question it. We question it when it shows up in a way that is beyond our definition of love. We are privileged to be present to the miracles that are occurring all around us because of love.  Many times we don’t notice them because they are not the expected or acceptable forms.  God is all about showing up differently each time. God is all about now.  The presence of love in this moment of your day is different from it would be in another moment of your day.  Love takes a different shape with your child than it does with your coworker or the homeless person you see on the street.  Love doesn’t make sense and yet it is the only thing that does.  It breaks the boundaries, it expands our hearts, it yanks us out of our confined thinking about reality.  This is how it is designed. My continuous prayer to God is: Show me how love is present in this moment when I cannot see any such thing.  Help me open my heart so that I can sense the love even if I cannot see it with my eyes.  My prayer for us today is that we have the courage to suspend our expectation of love and consider that it is showing up all the time in ways we don’t expect.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

In an ever-growing and ever-evolving universe the continuous construction becomes part of the divine landscape.  Growing up we lived in a town, like many, that often had construction crews on the roads and around buildings.  It seemed in the discussion of people, that construction when it came to buildings and new formations it was acceptable.  Construction on the roads was tolerated.  The sentiment was when is this going to be finished?  How much longer are to we endure this?  It is in our way, can’t they be done with it yet? When its complete, then all will be well. This is very much how we view our lives.  When something new is being created from scratch we are all for it.  When something existing must be tended to, or reconfigured, we seem irritated.  I often look at the redo or upkeep of an existing part of my life as a failure in the design.  I have told myself in the past that if I have to construct or reconstruct an existing structure–thought, way of being, action, it must mean that I did it wrong the first time.  What if the construction of what is existing is part of its design?  What if the process of life and creation meant that construction would and “should” occur?  What if my idea that something is wrong is wrong? Ha! I like that one!  God often hears me ask the question why and I would swear that I can see God smile when I do.  It’s not that asking why is a problem, I just have learned that its answer rarely brings me into alignment with peace.  Sometimes it does, but I have learned that the question I want to ask is–how can this allow me to construct my heart to be more present to love?  How will this experience redesign my thinking so that I can see with Your eyes instead of just my physical eyes?  My prayer for us today is that we embrace construction of our lives (our thinking, feeling, and being) as the Designers intended experience for us to be more present to love (who we are at our core).  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Moment by moment, burst of energy by burst of energy this world we live in was created.  It seems as though God created the world and then just let it be. As usual, things are not as they seem. God created this physical experience with a design of systems in place that allow creation to keep occurring.  In fact, what they are discovering about space is that creation is still continuing–new planets and galaxies.  It seems there is no end to the creation process.  It is the same with us.  God did not create us and then leave us to figure it out.  With each new breath, each new moment we are invited to participate in this creation process with God. We can take any situation and learn from it–that is creation.  Creation of a new perspective and understanding.  We can experience anything and learn about the power of love from it–that is creation.  Creation of a new space in our hearts that make the next situation one where we will experience more love.  For me it is about trusting that God is Creator. God is love.  God is who God claims to be over and over in my experience of my heart and spirit.  When I get stuck in my head about who or what God is, I am restricted and limited by what only my mind can conceive.  When I dive into my heart and get quiet enough to touch my spirit, I remember that God is beyond my understanding.  And beyond my understanding is okay as long as I trust that God is.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to trusting that God is even if we don’t know what or how or why God is.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Are you willing to let go of your mind’s need to understand God and let your heart and spirit remember that God is?  Share in the comments.

We are all here.  There must be a reason for that.  The existence of something shows that it is exactly as it should be in the moment.  We think we have to prove the reason for our existence, but the mere fact that we exist tells us that our Creator already approves of us.  I can spend a lot of my energy and have done so in the past trying to prove that it is valid that I am here taking up space.  What I didn’t understand is that I would not be here if I was not meant to be here.  It is hard for my ego that needs physical proof of everything to understand.  Not to mention that it doesn’t like the idea that no proof is required.    Simply being is what is the proof.  Approval has been granted already. So then for me the question remains, who am I being today?  Does my being exude the principles of love and tolerance, patience and kindness, and show that love is alive and well in the world.  This would be my “job” as the messenger of God.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to letting go of the idea that we have to prove our worth and instead just be who we are from the truth of who we are.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen