dailydatewithgod

 What are you magnifying?  What are you portraying to the world?  What if, you are more beautiful than you imagine yourself to be.  I was struck yesterday by this advertisement by Dove.  I don’t normally reference youtube, but you have to check this out:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk.  It really drives home the idea that we are much more critical of ourselves and our own sense of beauty.  I wonder however, if the women pointed out their negative features because they thought they would sound egotistical if they focused on the features that they like about themselves or if they really do only think about what they don’t like about themselves.  How would you describe your face?  How do you describe who you are being?  Would it match up with what others see in you?  Would it match up with how God sees you?  I have mentioned this many times before but Marianne Williamson hit the nail on the head when she said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”― Marianne Williamson, Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”  Who are you not to embrace and be your magnificent self?  My prayer for you today is that you take a moment to connect with how magnificent (God residing in you) you really are.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Our minds want to have everything figured out and we often convince ourselves that if we learn the formula and analyze something enough then we will be able to do it without thinking.  Our mind wants to know what it can do to go on automatic pilot.  This makes perfect sense for the brain.  There is so much that happens on automatic pilot–our heart pumping, oxygen flowing from one cell to another being carried through our system in the blood, lungs expanding and contracting, one leg in front of the other, etc.  We do not have to stop and think about these things, they just happen. We usually don’t notice until they stop happening.  These serve us a great deal and I am personally grateful for all these automatic responses and happenings.  When it comes to living life however, my spirit is more interested in being present to the gifts and the surprises–the mysteries of life.  It is embracing the unknown, the possible, and the moment to moment experiences that make life joyful.  God is all about being present in the here and now.  There is so much mystery in life and our brain may want to be afraid of it because it goes contrary to its nature, but if we take the elevator downstairs to our heart we can see the potential for joy.  Being mysterious means walking hand in hand with God, trusting that whatever comes up, he will be with us to walk through it.  It calls us to trust that God will play God’s part so that we can play ours.  We tend to fancy ourselves as great mystery solvers and we do quite well, but still there remains much of  life that we do not fully understand.  Part of the fun of life is being present in that mystery, playing a part in the mysterious.  My prayer for you today is that you become aware of something that you cannot explain and see how God is working in your life through that.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There are so many things in our experience that we can either be delighted and surprised by or irritated and displeased with.  It is always a choice.  I like the idea of being delighted because it is an element of surprise and curiosity.  In other words I can originally approach something with irritation and dissatisfaction and move to delighted quicker than acceptance and approval.  It is a mindset of curiosity, fascination, and welcoming the unexpected.  Who am I to say that whatever is happening or how a person is being is not exactly what I need to be present to and reacting to.  That, of course, would be the juncture.  Am I simply reacting to what is happening or am I making a specific choice on how to see the situation or person right in front of me.  It is helpful for me to begin to question my mind’s first response to something instead of just taking it in and usually judging it.  Yesterday I had the perfect opportunity.  I was at work and someone did something that I noticed irritated me.  I could have taken that and run with it.  Why isn’t he seeing what I am telling him?  Why isn’t it enough?  What is his problem?  I could have easily make it all about him.  But I was the one having the reaction.  He was just doing what he was doing.  It was not personal.  So I stopped and took a breath and started to harp on myself.  Why are you bothered by what he is doing? What is the matter with you Colleen?  So then I stopped again and said God, help me to see this as you see it.  Then I observed–isn’t it interesting that I am reacting to strongly to how this person is behaving.  I wonder why that is.  Look at how he has approached this whole thing and you got wrapped up in it.  It is not about you sweetheart.  What if you are a catalyst for his discovery process?  What if you can learn something from his dissatisfaction?  All of a sudden there was a shift and I was delighted by the interaction.  Amazing–just a few breaths and asking God for help with something “I should know how to handle” and a total energy shift.  My prayer for you today is that you have the courage to be open to how you can be delighted by something that irritates you.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

There is so much to get out of life.  There is so much to learn.  It is easy to get caught up in that mentality.  The real joy in life comes in finding a way to be of service to another human being, to make a contribution to the lives of others.  There are so many ways to do this but those who are most successful are those who have found their way of making a contribution to the greater whole. As I read about and study the lives of “successful” people the one common factor is that they found a gift that they could share with others.  Great spiritual masters live lives of contribution.  It is not done at their own expense, in other words, they do not justify their existence by how much they give.  Rather it is something that just comes out of their living a spiritual path.  There are so many ways that we can contribute to the world and to the lives of others. Most often we think of specific acts and or money, but mostly it is about how can I bring an attitude of love to this situation.  We often look for grand gestures and to prove that we are giving, but the giving from the heart is subtle yet impactful.  What kind gesture can I extend to a co-worker?  How can I be forgiving of a situation that irritates me?  What is one way I can refrain from harping on myself for my seeming imperfections today?  These are all ways to walk in love.  By extending love to others and to ourselves we increase our capacity to embrace a fuller more vibrant life.  If I wait for the perfect situation or circumstance it may never come.  I then spend my life inside a tiny box of expectations.  I need the courage of God to break out of that box and find a way to show love where there does not seem to be any.  No one else has your eyes and your experiences.  You are uniquely gifted, just as you are today, to contribute to the life of another.  I challenge you today to find a simple way that YOU can contribute (love, make a difference, extend a hand of kindness, be the face of God) to another human being. I will do the same.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

It is easy to think about the things that are going wrong.  Given the task to write down our good and bad qualities, we quickly list off the things that we do not like about ourselves first.  Perhaps it is part of the human condition to so easily be focused on what is wrong with the situation.  Perhaps it is just our reptilian brain.  But we do not have to simply obey our minds like robots.  We can choose to be different.  That is how the power of God-consciousness evolves.  When we connect with a being that is greater than ourselves then we can reconnect with the high sense of self that resides within each one of us.  The essence within ourselves that sees the good and appreciates it. I know for me, the quickest way to pull myself out of a slump is to list all the things that I am grateful for in my life.  All of a sudden my mind’s focus shifts to what is good and worth moving forward for.  Yep, it really is that quick and simple–kind of like this post.  🙂  My prayer for you today is that you stop and acknowledge the good (God) in your life at that moment.  Make it a good one!  Peace~Colleen

The theme of the Easter season is hope.  The whole point of someone who is a follower of Jesus is to live in hope.  His life spoke of the impossible being possible.  If you follow the discipline that he set forth then you cannot live in despair.  This is where the enthusiasm for life comes for Christians.  When one experiences this in his or her heart it is life changing.  Most faiths have something similar–a recognition of a connection with God that shifts the heart to experience the hope of new life. Being auspicious is something one is called to every day.  It is not always easy but it is simple.  It requires faith.  Faith is more than belief.  Belief is a statement.  Faith is what is lived in action.  Being a person of hope means that one hopes in all things, not just in the things that they see as good.  It is a call to find hope in the darkest of situations and even in other people that they perceive as hopeless.  It is so easy to turn away from another human being who does not live the way that we do or who does not do what we expect them to do.  What would happen if God did the same with us?  Where would we be then?  If I believe that my Creator created all things, then I believe that the hope that lives within me must live within all the things of life. Being a disciple of hope means having the audacity to find hope in the least likely places. When I want to turn away because a situation is not turning out the way that I want or a person is not doing or being a way that I want, then I am giving up on finding God in that person or situation.  My life will soon become very small .  It may have seemed safer to do that at some point, but being a grown-up means acknowledging that hope is alive and well, especially in those dark places.  My reluctance to see hope in those dark places usually stems from a fear of the dark places in me.  There is nothing in a situation or person that bothers me that isn’t somewhere inside of me, that is why it moves me.  If it did not connect in me, I would not be bothered in the least.  Being aware of places and people where I am not finding  hope (God) are gifts because they alert to me that there are parts of myself where I do not see hope (God).  My prayer for you today is that you may see a hopeless situation or person in your life as a gift.  A gift to open up and ask God to see where He can bring hope into your heart.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Life has a funny way of taking dips and turns that are unexpected.  But then I wonder, are they really unexpected?  Or is life unfolding the way life unfolds but it seems unexpected because it is not what I predicted?  The most hilarious part about that is that I have usually found my predictions skills to be lacking.  I think that life unfolds exactly as it is “supposed” to because that is how it unfolds.  The unexpected dips and turns are just not the ones in my version of the script.  LOL!  The beauty and the courage comes in being open to the twists and turns and trusting that they are just what the doctor ordered.  The universe is conspiring for my greater good and God is present in every experience.  In fact, God shows up just as unexpectedly.  I am reminded of that when I read the story in the gospels about Jesus walking on water.  The apostles were out fishing one night and all of a sudden they see this man walking on water and they were seized with fear.  So in his usual fashion, Jesus greeted them and said, “Be not afraid, it is I.”  They were amazed!  Here was God walking on water.  That wasn’t in any of their scripts.  It was beyond their comprehension.  They were completely taken by surprise and in a very human fashion the unexpected brought some fear.  God knows that we are thrown by the unexpected. God knows that we have these great ideas of how things “should” be.  He does not fault us for that. He knows that when things don’t go according to how we imagine, we become afraid.  He does not fault us for that.  Instead, God shows up in amazing, unexpected ways to match and surpass the twists and turns that we experience.  We get fearful because when we first encounter something unexpected we don’t think that God will show up to match that.  Yet, God does every time if we are open to be amazed by God. My prayer for you today is that your eyes may be opened to the unexpected and amazing way that God is showing up for you.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

When reading scriptures and sacred texts one idea that seems to abound is that God is everlasting.  God is not swayed by what humans do.  Perhaps because God is grounded in who God is.  God is resolved to be who God is.  The things of man may fall away but if they come from God they are forever.  This is how we can trust God to be the one to judge, the one to oversee our lives.  If we have faith that no matter what happens God will still be there, then all is well.  We have nothing to fear or worry about.  We have no reason to doubt that all things will commence for the greater good.  I can trust the process of what is happening in my life if I am grounded in something that will not go away ever.  With that knowledge I can breathe a little easier and face the day with renewed energy.  All of a sudden I am not responsible for keeping the world spinning.  While it may seem simple, I know that God is everlasting because each day night comes and each night day comes.  No matter what happens in my life.  No matter what decisions I make a new day is always dawning.  I know I am not making that happen.  If God sees fit to wake me up for a new day then it means that He has not yet given up on me.  Who am I to give up on me or you?  I still need to show up and do my part but I can do so with the confidence and the resolve that everything is just as it should be.  Where I need to keep my mind in check is with my expectations.  But I don’t have a husband and my job is not my favorite thing to do all the time and my relationships aren’t always harmonious and my boss didn’t acknowledge what great work I have been doing, etc.  Those are all expectations that I have of how I think things should be.  If I focus on that, then yeah, God is totally messing up.  I need to align my will with God’s will.  I need to ask to see things through God’s eyes.  God often says to me, “Colleen, are you growing?  Colleen, are you beginning to see the beauty of the world that you live in?  Colleen, do you see you the way that I see you?  Colleen, do you trust that no matter what I will always be me, and I always love you?” My prayer for you today is that you may recognize the everlasting presence of God in your life simply by taking a breath.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Trust in God is not easy.  I don’t recall God seeing in scripture anything about things being easy, but my mind rebuffs at the notion of stretching myself.  Belief is one thing.  I don’t have to take much action when it comes to belief.  But trust is the next level.  Can I trust that God will actually show up?  If I believe that God is either everything or He isn’t then I must live my life as though I am convinced of that.  I must trust that God will show up.  The difficulty comes in for me is when God doesn’t show up the way I think He is going to show up.  LOL!  It is as though I am saying to God, “Wait a minute, you didn’t read the lines on your script correctly.  That is not what is supposed to happen.”  In that regard I am playing God and wanting God to play the part I have assigned.  Rather presumptuous of me, dont’ you think?  Being convinced of God’s love and care means that I trust that no matter what happens I will not lose sight of who I truly am.  No matter what the circumstances that occur in my life I can trust that God is with me, that I am growing more in love and no real harm will come to me.  To do this, I have to start out small.  I learned many years ago to turn all the little things over to God–everything from buying shoes to making a phone call.  It was when I began to see how God showed up in these small situations that I trusted that God would show up in big situations.  I learned to be delighted and surprised by how God showed his love for me. It became a reflection of the delight and love God has for me.  My prayer for you today is to test out how you can be convinced of God’s love for you.  Take something small and seemingly inconsequential and turn it over–ask God to do with what He will and just be open to what happens.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is the God of light!  He encourages us to live in the light.  Love doesn’t grow in the dark.  It doesn’t mean that there won’t be times in the dark, there will be and we need those moments of darkness to truly be able to see the light.  But to be lucid, be transparent, show God our stuff so that it can be used for the greater good we must bring it to the light.  It is precisely the things that I want to hide that I need to make clear.  There is no freedom in hiding.  The irony, of course, is that I am not really hiding anything.  The harder I try to keep something in the dark the more energy I have to work hard to keep it hidden.  Then there are the things I have to do to pretend that everything is alright. Lie to myself and to others, use something to keep it down, contort myself and try to convince myself that there is not a disturbance in my own heart.  All these things in the hopes that no one will find out my secret.  All the while everyone else is carrying around the same secret.  The secret that I don’t know what I am doing, that there are things that I have done that I am ashamed of, that I am afraid I don’t measure up. We all have those thoughts and fears.  Over time as we wear them, we think we are them and lose touch with the light of love that lives inside of us.  But when we have the courage to reveal ourselves to ourselves and to God; to authentically admit that we are pretending, a certain light falls upon this foggy scene.  We can be open to the idea that God does not judge as we judge.  Most importantly, God does not love as we love. God is love and he invites us to see that we are love too because we come from Him.  Nothing we say or do can change who we are at our core.  My prayer for you today is that you admit to yourself and to God something that you are pretending and just see what happens.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen