dailydatewithgod

Our minds are powerful and creative centers.  We are given a tremendous gift by God that enables us to shape our reality.  How we view things in our lives is a direct correlation to what we make them mean.  We do not see things as they “actually” are, we see things as we think we see them.  This is why two people can be present at the same event and see two different things.  Everything we witness with our eyes goes through the lens of our perception.  If I am having a good day a compliment is lovely and it matches my perception of my good day. If I am having a bad day it can be welcomed as a switch to my thinking or even be rejected because I don’t see what the other person is talking about.  Today it is raining and is said to be raining heavily all day in southern California.  This means I can expect a wet, messy, hectic, stressful experience –and that is just getting out the door to put my stuff in the car before I even get into traffic!  Or, it can be a smooth, cleansing, appreciation of moving a little slower and really paying attention to what is in front of me.  It is entirely up to me.  The survival mechanism of my brain is braced for the first experience but as I sit down to my date with God this morning I am reminded that I have another option.  I have several other options.  I can show God where my head wants to go with my vision for the day and ask, does this match what you have in mind for my day?  Show me another way to perceive the possibilities for the day?  To which God smiles and winks at me and says, I think we can do better than what your limited mind came up with. Stick with me kid and today can be full of surprises.  I am happy to be with you as much or as little as you would like. My prayer for us today, no matter what outer circumstances we are facing, is we walk into our day or the next hour, that we bring our seemingly fixed perception honestly to God and ask if there isn’t a possible change and chance to create something different.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The specialness of gifts is not only in their content but also in their delivery, intention, and reception.  We have all had experiences when we were given a gift that we did not want.  Or even when it was something we did want, we don’t know how to receive it.  I mean fully receive it by acknowledging the giver, the effort to obtain and present the gift and the contribution it makes to our lives.  We tend to approach gifts from God in the same way.  God’s gifts sometimes come wrapped in messy wrapping paper and without a bow. Sometimes they seem more like hardships than gifts. Any gift we are given comes with a responsibility–an ability to respond.  We can either accept the gift as is, be indifferent to it, or wish it away.  Any of those responses are our decision.  But what if we looked at the intention behind the gift?  What if we recognized that sometimes the most unlikely of circumstances and experiences cause us to grow in ways we never expected?  We have the ability to respond by receiving with a simple Thank You, no matter what the gift is.  Then we can ask the Giver, what do you wish me to do with this gift?  How will this cause me to grow in love?  My prayer for us today is that we be open to receiving the non-gift looking gifts of our day as invitations to grow in love and say Thank you.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We are given all that we need to take the greatest course of our lives.  God did not drop us off on this human experience and abandon us.  When we are thinking that we can’t do it and we are lost.  If we find ourselves wandering around without a sense of direction it is not because we lack the know-how or the skills.  It is because we have exhausted all our human resources.  We have reached the limit of our limited mind.  What seems like a dead-end is simply an invitation to seek out a God-end.  We were never meant to do this life separate from God.  That is what our ego tells us.  EGO=Edging God Out. When we pause and get quiet we are afforded the chance to reconnect to Our Creator who is always ready and willing to join in this experience with us.  We can discern-acknowledge when we need more than our own resources.  It can be humbling to our ego, but given that our ego is all about illusions that perception of humility is only fleeting.  When we actually invite God in to work through us and in us, we experience a power greater than we could ever know on our own resources. This is what miracles are made of.  I can go through my day only operating from my limited resources or I can experience the beauty of life on multiple levels when I walk in partnership with God.  That is part of the gift of my date time with God each morning.  It is a chance for me to invite God into my day at the get-go.  Then I am more likely to include God (how nice of me, huh?) throughout the rest of the day.  My prayer for us today is that we have the eyes and hearts to see that when we feel beaten down or defeated, exhausted or frustrated, we can know it is not the end of the story but the beginning of the God-invitation.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We are all created from the mind of God. It is said in the Hebrew scriptures that God knew of us before we were even formed in the womb.  This connection, this relationship that we have to the Eternal One goes far beyond our understanding of connection and relationship.  This is the good news.  If it is beyond our understanding, then anything we think about it cannot change it.  It is simply not within our realm to make it untrue.  We can completely rely on the idea that God knows us and we can know God.  Our knowledge of God can begin whenever we want it to because it is already established.  It simply requires an acknowledgment or a remembering for us to reignite the experience.  My prayer for us today is that we awaken in some small way to the fact that God’s knowledge of us and our knowledge of God is alive and well.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

The grand blessing of being a being created out of love is that we are called to greatness. We are called to greatness because it is the fullest extension of living in the being of the love that we are.  It is not the measurement of greatness of the world. It is not about being the best or the brightest.  It is about being love with great power.  That power comes from the Being of Love that created us.  Whenever we are the opposite of the greatest version of ourselves we are simply not connected to who we truly are.  We are not connected to Our Creator who designed us in love.  When that happens we can simply pause and reconnect.  God show me what being in love means right here right now.  God help me to see and feel you right here right now.  God who would you have me be right here right now? My prayer for us today is that we remember in those moments that seem less than an embrace of greatness that we reach out and connect to the one who calls us to LOVE.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We as human beings are so sacred that we cannot help but create specialness and sacredness out of the simplest things.  It is an expression of our spirit to make holy the experiences that we have.  Without even realizing it we express our deepest selves when we invite ritual into the moments of our lives.  The Christmas holidays are just one of those times.  It is easy, however to get caught up in the madness of the physical representation of that spiritual ritual.  We worry about what gifts to give and who to spend time with and what it will look like.  We get frustrated with lines and traffic around shopping malls, the booking of flights and hotels, and who needs to be sure to be at our celebration of the holiday.  In the Catholic Christian tradition the weeks leading up to Christmas are known as Advent.  It is a time of preparation for God made manifest in the word, i.e.-the Birth of Christ.  The people are called to prepare their hearts for this incredible coming.  Our spirits, whatever our physical religious expression, call us to the same thing whenever we look to invite a greater consciousness, a God-manifest experience into our lives. We all know this experience deep down within us.  In order for our hearts to be ready to take in such an experience we need to clear out that which is the opposite of love.  It is a time of acknowledging those elements of lack of love that lie within our hearts and ask that God show us how to remove them so that we can create a stable space for the full experience of God to give birth in our hearts.  When I am holding on to a lack of love, an unwillingness to let go of my ideas of what should have been, I am closed off to the full expression of love in my heart.  Therefore my preparation of this time is about letting others and myself off the hook.  I am choosing to take this time to honestly look at that which I am holding on to that does not match the truest experience of God made manifest in my heart. I humbly acknowledge that I don’t even know sometimes that which I am holding on to. Part of my preparation is asking God to kindly show me that which I may not want to see.  When we spend our date time together I rest my head on his shoulder and say, I am here because I want to experience more of You, show me what I can do or be to make that a reality and then I listen.  I know that God will show me if I keep my heart and my eyes open and I will be given the courage to trust and let go.  My prayer for us today is that we are all given the courage to prepare our hearts and spirits for the greatest expression of God made manifest this holiday season so that it may truly be a time of joy and peace.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

Have you ever watched the way the wind flows through the trees?  The way the light flows through a skylight? The way the waves come again and again to edge of the shore?  There is this silent flow through which life is happening all the time.  The wind moves freely.  The light beams freely. The waves move freely.  There seems to be nothing to prevent any of those elements from doing their thing. Not the tree, not the glass of the skylight, not the shore full of sand.  What if we were endowed with this same freedom to be who we are?  What if the idea that we are stopped by things outside of ourselves was only an illusion or an excuse? How might we be different from who we are being right now? When I am aligned with a sense of purpose and a feeling of safety and love, I am free to be me in the world.  It is only when I am in this space of connection with God that I am completely free.  It is as though I am not worried about buying into what the world thinks.  I am driven by being who God wants me to be.  Who I know myself to be.  There is nothing more freeing than that and it can happen in the smallest of ways–when sitting in traffic, washing the dishes, laughing with a friend, hugging a family member, crying on the phone after a frustrating experience, or telling someone I love and appreciate them.  These moments of freedom are not hindered by anything because within them they are full expressions of myself–good and bad, right and wrong, perfect and imperfect.  I just am in that moment.  No judgment.  No expectation.  No other place to be.  My prayer for us today is that we pay attention to those moments of freedom, breathe them in and then make note of where we are in our hearts and spirits in that moment so we can create more of it.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

As we embrace a new day with our breath we are given endless opportunities to go with our ego programming that was set in place at a young age or choose to go down a different path.  Our programming consists mostly of beliefs shape our perspective on life.  We see things as right or wrong, good or bad, worthy or not worthy.  We assess each situation in our minds and determine which category it falls into.  When we experience something outside the categories that exist we often do not know what to do with it and it wakes us up.  We typically see these things as problems or irritations and react to them in that manner.  But what if they are gifts of awareness dressed in unlikely packages?  What if they become the invitation to go into the heart and spirit and see with a different set of beliefs?  God calls upon us each day to start anew with him.  We are invited to take up this invitation and create new beliefs based on the realities of spirit.  We are encouraged often through what we see as random or unwelcome happenings to set a course on a different pathway and be present.  My prayer for us today is that we choose to take one of those irritations or unwelcome occurrences and with God create a new belief through which to see our reality.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

When we look at nature we are given a blue print for how God looks at growth. One things stem from another.  A seed is planted and it grows in a nurturing environment.  Then it is pruned and picked and used for its purpose or it grows over time and produces fruit.  The foundation must be healthy in order for growth to occur.  Our foundation must be healthy in order for growth in love to occur.  When we look at our own life’s beginnings we may see things that were not fertile ground and may have had experiences that caused us to wilt and parts of us to die.  But that is because we were not drawing from out true foundation.  Our true foundation is LOVE.  That is what we were created from, for, and by.  No matter how many things were laid on top of that, does not take away that when we get to our roots, it is what we will find.  We get waylaid however when we begin to take a look at what has been placed on top of that in terms of thoughts which got repeated and became beliefs, experiences, and musings about who we are.  Our ego does not want to let go of the story that it created on top of our true foundation because it cannot grow fertile in the idea of interconnectedness.  When we connect with God we see that who we are is so much more than our ego, who we are is that love in which we are truly grounded.  Most importantly God continually offers to be a companion in our road to get back to our roots.  We are not alone.  My prayer for us today is that we remember that God is not afraid of what stands between us and love and so we can ask for the courage to face that which is not true.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There is something very poetic and moving about just hearing the word healing.  Somehow through its very essence it creates a space of love and comfort.  I have come realize that healing is really what is needed more than anything.  Not fixing, not manipulating, not pretending it doesn’t exist, not judging, not comparing, just healing.  It conveys the idea that once it, whatever it is, is brought into the light, the warmth of love can restore it to its natural state.  God calls upon us to awaken to healing in our own lives. What are the ways that we feel broken, beaten down, worn out, a lack of love?  Are we willing to bring those thoughts, feelings, ideas, situations, etc. to God who will shine the light of love and restore them to wholeness?  The hardest part about healing is the admission that we cannot heal ourselves.  However, God does not make it too difficult.  God simply invites us to come into the light and show our hands.  Then God can place his hands inours and send the healing to and through us.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to step into the light and show our hands so they may be healed.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen