dailydatewithgod

Being in close relationship and connection with God creates a sense of peace and purpose. The peace allows us to ride the waves of life in often a seemingly mad world.  The internal alignment that is created in that quiet time with our Creator sets up an equilibrium that is not tossed about when we are present to situations that could invite us into the chaos. There is a pause and a moment to breathe and make a choice. We may choose to engage by reacting to the situation or we can choose to disengage from the world’s definition of what is happening.  It is a space of a coolness that comes over us when we take a deep breath and remind ourselves to whom we are beholden.  My prayer for us today is when we find the world clamoring at us for a reaction, we have the courage to utilize our breath and bring in the coolness of knowing whatever happens God has got us on this one.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God says yes to us every day.  God says yes to us when we are given the breath of a new moment.  It may not be the pomp and circumstance we think we want but the subtleties of God far outweigh the drama that our ego’s cling to.  We think in our minds that a parade should be thrown for us when we act in a way that is good when we measure our lives by the world’s standard. In God’s world doing the good and right thing is simply an extension of our being our true selves.  It flows naturally through us.  When we respond yes back to God, we are saying yes to a life lived with purpose, with a sense of wellness, and a peace that goes beyond understanding.  We are saying yes to an experience that is not limited to the physical existence in which our bodies are present.  We are saying yes to a life that unfolds moment to moment and a willingness to be present, to feel, and be touched by the unknown gifts that await us.  Saying yes to God and essentially to our true selves might mean saying no to others. Our ego’s rebuff this and is not interested because it values more what other people think of us than the truth of who we are. More times that I can count in my life, I have said yes to someone or something under the guise that it is what was expected or because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings.  Which when I look carefully, I realize the craziness of that statement. How can I actually hurt someone’s feelings?  Do feelings get hurt?  And given that I don’t actually know what someone else is feeling or thinking in the first place, I see the falseness of my own thinking. The reality is that I do not want to run the risk of not meeting someone else’s approval of me.  That someone becomes more important than God. One of the benefits of a strengthened daily walk with God is that when I am leaning in that direction and I take time to pause and check in with myself and God, I can feel a tug on my heart.  God calls me to say yes to Him and love and if that manifests in a No to someone or something in the world, then I have to trust that all will be well even if it doesn’t look that way.  This is a yes to faith.  My prayer for us today is that we have the courage to say yes back to the Great Creator who says yes to us and the fulfillment of our best selves with each new breath we are granted. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There is so much beauty and wonder to absorb in this experience we call life.  God has gifted us with such a beautiful portal through which to experience life.  This planet, each other, our bodies and our minds. Children know this because they are just starting out.  They delight each time they learn something new.  You can see it in their eyes.  It is as though their hearts and their spirits jump with excitement the moment they assimilate something new.  If they are old enough to express it verbally they will often tell you over and over what they have learned.  Somewhere along the way we lose that.  We take on a stance of thinking we are supposed to know things we don’t know simply because there are things we do know.  This robs us of the excitement and joy that comes from learning new things each moment. Things about our world, the people around us, our bodies, and our minds.  When I go into a situation thinking I know how it is going to turn out or how so and so is going to respond, I essentially cut myself off from being present to it.  I can then miss the gift of the interaction and lose the learning that might come from the process.  I think this is part of what Jesus meant when he talked about being like little children.  When I am teachable, I am humble, and I am open.  My prayer for us today is that we have the courage to let go of what we think we know and be willing to walk into one experience today open to what we can learn.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is Almighty, Everlasting, Omnipotent, All Love, and beyond our understanding.  We get asense of the majesty and power of God when we sense it in our own lives.  It is not separate from what we are capable of experiencing but we often need guidance on how to use the power we are given.  Power can used as an ego trip or something to manipulate others.  Or we can choose to own our power as human beings and work in partnership with God to direct it for the greater good of all.  We like to shrink and play like we are victims and sometimes that seems more comfortable.  The reason it is comfortable is because it is based on an experience we may have had at a young age when we were a victim.  It is familiar and therefore comfortable.  But we are not children anymore.  This process of maturing and taking responsibility for our lives allows us to grow in partnership with God and live life to the fullest.  Shedding our ego’s story ofvictimhood can be challenging, believe me, I know.  But it is the most rewarding thing to wake up and claim the power that comes from a relationship with God that is rooted in love and responsibility.  Even when it is not pretty, it is beautiful. My prayer for us today is that we are willing to let go of one story of lack of power and step into the power God has given us to take responsibility (ability to respond) for our lives.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

The gift of this life is that there is so much to it and yet it is so simple.  We are multifaceted and layers of energy and limitless beings.  That is all captured in a physical body and a brain mind.  But truly our spirit is so much more than our physical space that we inhabit on this planet.  There is a reason that spiritual experiences often feel like out-of-body experiences.  They are out-of-body because they connect us with the greater energy network of which we are an integral part.  So no matter what is going on, there is always something somewhere to be glad about.  Gratitude is the portal to aligning our thinking and being with God and with the love from which we were created.  It is the quickest route back to a place of acceptance and recognition of our nature and the truth of those around us, even those who hurt, confuse, betray, and irritate us.  Gratitude keeps us in the now. When we pause with our breath to acknowledge something that we are grateful for we shift our thinking from focusing just on the physical reality and extend ourselves outside our bodies and minds.  My prayer for us today is that we take one of our breaths and use it as a reminder to focus on something to be glad about and make use of the power of gratitude to realign ourselves with love (God).  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Forgiveness is letting go of the idea that the past should have been different. It is the ultimate level of acceptance that allows our hearts to become whole and supple again.  There are many people who I have learned how to forgive over the years and every time I realized that it was only my own heart and spirit that were hindered when I was in a state of non-forgiving.  It has been my experience that like most things spiritual, forgiveness is a process.  I had to learn to be patient and loving with myself in the process of letting go little by little.  Some things my ego just wanted to hold on to for mere familiarity, if nothing else.  It was only when I put my hand in God’s and trusted that the vision God had for my heart did not include any chains on it.  Forgiveness is about giving.  Giving one’s heart the opportunity to be fully open to the power of love.  It is choosing that the circumstances will no longer determine my capacity to love.  It is recognizing that my heart is for giving away love not keeping it from others and myself.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to the power of forgiveness in the smallest form so that we can experience the heart lift that comes from turning our heart to God to be freed of our chains of expectation.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Each day that we awaken with a new breath to take God renews his promise. God reminds us that we are given life and should we choose to accept this mission a full day of possibility lies ahead of us.  When we take in that breath and make those first steps, we are choosing how to take that gift of life and spend it.  God will not make the choices for us but God can be there, if we invite him, to walk the steps that are in front of us with each new moment, each new breath.  In the beginning we may be uncertain and rely on others to point out what to choose, where to go, what to say.  But growing into maturity means owning our own choices and making our own decisions.  We are not victims of circumstance, we are co-creators of our lives.  We can choose to create from an awareness or a default program, the choice is ours.  God supports us and sees us for our greatest potential no matter what we choose.  That is because God is Love.  God will not see us for our mistakes as more than the essence of who we are.  But with God’s help we can choose to stand in the light and be who we truly are with courage.  It is not the world that renews its promise of life, it is God.  God invites us to play an active role in that renewal.  My prayer for us today is that we recognize the many ways that God shows us throughout the day that over and over again, we are chosen.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

We are spiritual beings having a human experience, not human beings having a spiritual experience.  Our hearts and spirits manifest in a sometimes non-physical manner in order to provide the physical experience that our soul has called us to return us to the knowledge of our wholeness.  Our ego spends a lot of time and energy invested in the story of our separateness and brokenness. and much of the world supports this same theory.  Just pick up any magazine or listen to a conversation while standing in line somewhere–it is often about what is wrong with fill-in-the-blank.  This is part of our survival mechanism.  Our brains look for what is wrong to avoid impending danger.  When we lived in caves and whether or not we lived or died was a day-to-day event, this makes sense.  However, most of the threats to our survival don’t actually threaten us on a life or death level today.  If we are willing to recognize that we are in existence on a plane in which the All Powerful is in charge and nothing that happens can undo what God has created, then everything that happens is an opportunity to grow in love.  A lesson to return us to the memory of the knowledge of our true spirit, our oneness with God, our oneness with love.  If we are relating it on a strictly physical level then it is about the content.  My prayer for us today is that with each breath we connect with our spirit and thus the Great Spirit and remember who we are and why we are here in this moment. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The profoundness of sound is amazing!  I have always been an aficionado of music.  All kinds.  As a dancer I have learned to appreciate the subtleties of the nuances of music that are built into the design of how it flows.  I do not play any instruments nor do I sing (at least not on key unless I have trained my voice) but the ability to move with music is something I know that comes from God.  I am moved by music and music moves through me.  It is as though I can sense the life force in the vibration of the sound waves.  I know that studies have been done that show how music can shift our moods and even enhance brain activity. The auditory cortex processes sound in our brain but music has been shown to activate memory, emotional, and other sections of the brain.  The beauty of life is that music does not just exist in literal form of songs and chords, it is in all of life.  Everything has a rhythm, everything has a sound wave that can be combined with something and thus we experience the soundtrack of our lives.  In the film August Rush, the character Wizard says, ” You know what music is? God’s little reminder that there’s something else besides us in this universe, a harmonic connection between all living beings, every where, even the stars.”  My prayer for us today is that we be open to listening to the music all around us and breathe in how it connects us to God and all living beings.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen