dailydatewithgod

God is the certainty of life.  Without God there is no life. To acknowledge the presence of life means to recognize God’s presence.  They are one in the same.  To accept the life that we have been given is a gift to ourselves from God.  To deny the gift of our lives is to deny the one that created us and our connection to All That Is.  It is easy to take for granted that we will wake up each day and that the next breath will come. We are not bad because we forget to be consciously aware of the gift of our own lives.  God simply wants us to rejoice in it as he does.  God is excited that we are breathing.  God is excited that we continue to move forward and do our best.  It matters little to God if we succeed in a way that is accepted by the world.  It only matters that we keep showing up and being willing to do learn and to grow in love.  We are evidence of the power of love and of God when we show up and do our best.  Our best is different depending on the day, but it is easy to do when we remember that we have the power of the whole universe cheering us on.  We can expect that God sees us as good even when we don’t.  We can expect that God has confidence in our ability to keep showing up even when we don’t.  We can expect that God never doubts our capacity for love even when we or those around us do.  It is easy for me to slip into thinking that my thinking is that of God’s.  When I do, I simply need to pause, take a breath and remember that the breath did not come from me alone and it moves through me just as God does every moment of every day.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to suspend our thinking of us for the thinking of the God who we can expect to see us as only love.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The Glorious masterpiece that is you is right now.  God is made manifest in you today, in this moment, in this breath.  It is not when you have the job or the car or the significant other.  It is not when you get the degree or are no longer in debt, have the perfect body or deal with your past.  God does not quantify you based on who you are in the physical sense.  That is an ego job.  God acknowledges each day the perfection of creation and you are included in that.  You are not greater than or less than any living breathing element of energy on this planet.  Your magnificence is not in comparison to someone or something else.  It is just you.  God did not create something that lacked anything.  You are whole and complete right now.  More importantly, you can decide in this moment whether or not to believe in God’s creation.  You can with your next breath own and celebrate the unique magnificence and presence of God that you are to yourself and to this world.  The reason you are you with all your quirks and “missing” elements is because it is exactly what is needed by the world to see God today. God help me to believe that you knew what you were doing when you created me.  God help me to trust that you were wise in your decision to grant me a breath this morning to start my day.  My prayer for us today is that you be open to believing in action that God knows more than you.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There is a rhythm in the flow of life that exists.  We hear in the heartbeats of our mothers when we are in the womb.  We are present to it when stand on the shore and watch and listen to the waves flow in and away from the coast.  We tune in with it when we notice our own heartbeat.  These are all reminders from God that behind all things physical is an eternal direction.  There is a guidance system built within us and the natural world that speaks to a constancy that we cannot destroy.  We have babies that have a difficult time in the womb of their mothers, we destroy coast lines with our oil ship crashes, and push our bodies and cause our hearts to stop.  And yet, life keeps moving forward.  Babies are delivered and survive, oceans get cleaned up and new life emerges, and people get their hearts restarted and learn to take greater care of themselves.  Life wins.  Life always wins.  Even when it ends, it has won because it existed in the first place.  When someone dies they have passed on their thinking and way of being to those around them. We are affected by others because we are not as separate as we imagine ourselves to be. We can choose what we want to be impacted by but we are not without effect.  An orchestra is impacted by the role of the violin.  It will not change what the trombone plays in the symphony but it can be made more profound when they play in rhythm with each other. My prayer for us today is that we find a sense of God’s rhythm for our lives and play our part in the orchestra of life as only we can.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

In this whole wide world there are so many intricacies that is hard to imagine the power that is responsible for creating it all.  We cannot within our finite minds comprehend the depth and breadth of the existence of life.  Even more mind-blowing is that the same Creator who designed everything we see “out there” also designed everything in us.  God invites us continually to keep creating. In partnership, God wants to do over and over again what God does which is create.  We have a set template or blueprint but we do not have to go by it if we choose to be creative.  We can be grateful for the foundation of the blueprint and learn from it. We can also recognize the greater blueprint that exists underneath it.  In other words, we can recognize that without the grains of the paper or ability to create grids a blueprint would not even exist.  We can align ourselves with the Creator of the ability of our minds to create a blue print and recreate and co-create from that space.  Whenever I feel overwhelmed and stuck, I recognize that I am working only from the set blue print of ideas, thoughts, beliefs, habits, and ways of being that have been with me a long time.  My spirit longs to create something new and my ego mind wants to hold on to what it knows, so I feel stuck.  This is where I take a breath, reach for God’s hand and say, Creator, show me what is possible here and infuse my spirit with the power and the courage to step into how you see my reality.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to our ability to creatively approach our life staring with our breath (our invitation to Spirit).   Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Within each one of us there is a presence.  A presence of love and light.  It is the essence of who we are.  This is why little babies seem to glow.  They are so connected to their own essence and have not yet been here long enough to pile layers on top of that.  By the time we reach adulthood we have so many stories caked on top of our essence that we can forget it is even there.  But our spirit whispers in the quiet moments and in our pauses. When we take a breath it is like the body’s way of calling upon the spirit.  The breath brings healing. Our body works in conjunction with our mind and our spirit.  It is not a separate entity.  It provides us with information about the state of our health.  Our body is not the problem or the solution, it is simply a reflection.  After a lifetime of hating my body, blaming my body, and feeling betrayed by my body, I have begun to be restored to wholeness. It has been a lifetime process but I am grateful for the temple that my spirit inhabits and try with patience to listen to its messages.  I believe that God calls us to be an embodiment of Love for the world.  That begins with finding something to love or at least like about the body we inhabit.  My prayer for us today is that we find one thing to love about the temple of our spirit so that we can allow the spirit to shine through the temple and share love with the world.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The gold of who we are is encoded in our hearts.  The love that we come from is throughout our entire being.  We cannot escape the revelation of our true selves.  At some point it seeps out.  When we allow it to, it flows from us. When we get out-of-the-way (accept our luck) and let our spirit shine, it lights up the whole world.  This is as designed.  We are beings of light and love. It may not seem like this because we have temporarily taken up an identity which is grounded in only the physical experience and walk around showing or rather hiding that to the world.  We are so much more that the titles and accomplishments we carry around on top of our hearts.  The beauty of who we are lies in the places we call weakness and vulnerability.  The light that we have to shine comes through the exposure of our pure desire to love and be connected to God and to one another. The luck of our life’s story comes from letting go of our stories of strength in the physical sense and embracing of the seeming weaknesses that allow us to open up to receive and transmit love.  Our ego would have us believe that it is best to hide the luck of our lives.  Our spirit knows that when we see the weakness it becomes the portal to open up to God, to others and to reveal that golden light within.  It is the pot of gold at the end of our rainbow.  For me this means not condemning myself for my weaknesses but asking God to help me seem them as the rainbow line to love.  My prayer for us today is that we open up to accepting one of our weaknesses as the luck of our lives.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The permanence we seeks stands and looks us right in the eyes of our soul.  We need not seek outside ourselves for the sense of safety and security that our heart longs for.  We simply need to remember that by connecting to God within our hearts, we are completely safe.  We are taken care of and in this moment of our breath all is well.  It sounds too simplistic.  Most spiritual concepts are simplistic.  Not easy but simple.  It calls upon us to let go of that which we have known in our physical minds to create a sense of safety and okayness and call upon God in our hearts to be our safety. It requires letting nature take its course of things coming and going.  All passes through time in the proper order and with complete ease.  Unless we block it or stand in its way, it (insert person, place, or thing) will flow. One of my favorite phrases is, “This too shall pass.”  It is helpful in times of strife and discomfort.  In times of joy and ease it is a reminder to fully breathe in and enjoy the experience.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to letting one thing pass that we want to hold on to and just notice how it feels to let it flow.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is right here, right now.  That is the power of the now.  When we are in the moment, we are in the one space and time where the physical meets the eternal.  When we bring ourselves to the present moment we are united with God.  In one spirit, one heart, and one mind we have an opportunity to be fully present. God does not spend time thinking about what happened previously.  God is all about what we are going to do now.  God does not bring up what didn’t work in the past.  God consistently sees us as how we are in this moment. Life lived in partnership with God, therefore is about letting go. Letting go of the “shoulds”, letting go of our old ideas about things, letting go of what we did in the past.  Yes, we can learn from the past by looking at it with clear eyes, but God doesn’t want us to stay there. Our mind that relies only upon the physical understanding of the world grasps at the past because it is what is known. God is beyond our understanding and therefore unknown.  The ego mind does not know what to do with the unknown and out of fear wants to keep us from what it cannot grasp.  To be with God means to be in unknown.  If we connect with our spirits we will sense the song of our hearts that rejoice when we are right here, right now. Despite our mind’s warning that it is unsafe because it is unknown, when we are fully present with God there is nothing to fear.  Right now, in this moment I am okay.  Right now in this moment, you are okay.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to being in as many right nows that we can and breathe in the experience of God.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

If we were to spend time in a garden I doubt we would overhear a conversation of a tomato comparing itself to a turnip or a sunflower comparing itself to a rose.  It simply doesn’t happen (literally or otherwise). Something in nature inherently knows that it is not about being anything other than itself.  The sunflower’s greatest role is to be as strong, healthy and vibrant as it can be.  To utilize the soil that it is grounded in, absorb the light from the sun and open itself to experience all things. It knows inherently that it brings beauty and joy simply by being.  It is the same for us.  It is not about comparing ourselves to someone else.  God did not create us as a reaction to what else was already created. God simply loves and we became.  Our greatest truth is to be the best we can be in love.  We also recognize that our best may be different from moment to moment. This is where our grounding comes in.  God show me how to be my best self in this moment, in this situation.  God show me what love looks like coming from me (not him or her or some expected ideal) right here, right now.  My prayer for us today is that we look to God to be rooted in how we are the best expression of love in the moment we are in.  After all, why else are we in the moment we are in?  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Right now in this moment there is ultimate beauty to behold.  God has been up all night almost holding his breath in anticipation (one moment at a time) at what might and then you took a breath. In that moment God rejoiced.  You said yes!  You opened your eyes and you began to move forward with your day.  God rejoices when we respond to the life we have been given one day at a time, one moment at a time.  God finds wonder and awe in us, his creation.  God is ready to give us the gifts of the day. It is our part to receive them.  Sometimes we run with the story that we don’t deserve them. Sometimes we get stuck in the story that there are no gifts for us because they do not show up in the packaging that we expect.  But what if we were to let go of our expectations and just be open to the idea that this day is full of gifts from God.  My prayer for us today is that we decide whether or not today will be a day to receive the gifts of God and whatever form they show up and see how our day’s focus shifts.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen