dailydatewithgod

My prayer for us is the curiosity to notice the things we are binding whether identities, experiences, or ideas and if the bindings are defined by our hearts or our heads today.

It is a little hard to grasp at the idea that God is enthralled with us.  I am not a parent, but I have heard it compared to how parents are enthralled with the newborn child.  Everything is fascinating, everything holds promise, everything is something to be proud of and marveled at.  Yet somewhere along the way the parent loses connection with the enthrallment as the child grows up. Perhaps the lack of enthrallment has less to do with the child and more to do with the parents. It is analogous as to what happens with us when we grow up.  As kids we are fascinated with the unknown until we become afraid of it.  Children find joy and marvel in what they do not know.  Adults build a life around what they do know.  Kids test things out with dogged attention sometimes over and over again to figure out how something works.  Adults are more likely to give up when it doesn’t work out the first time or fails to meet his or her expectations .  The level of enthrallment God has with God’s creation is like a child’s with the presence of life.  God never stops seeing the blessed nature with which we were created.  God is always aware of how much we are growing and becoming and does not fear the paths we travel. God holds the space for us to become tomorrow something we know nothing about today. God is the constant presence within us that does not stray no matter how many times we miss the mark.  God’s enthrallment with us is not limited by our capacity to conceive of it.  When God invites us to draw closer in our hearts each time we take a breath, it is an opportunity to see what has God so enthralled.

According to the laws of thermodynamics energy can neither be created nor destroyed.  It can be changed but all that is has always been and will always be.  If that is the case, why do we go around with this fear of the end or the destruction?  Why do we worry that we must get something done before it’s too late if whatever it is never gets destroyed?  There is no fear of whether or not energy will last.  We get wedded to the context and form of what it is we want to last.  We hold the expectation of the energy in that form to not change or fear it changing before we experience it.  God holds no expectations.  God is not held by our fears.  God is the lasting energy.  As I began to open up my eyes to how God was showing up outside my expectations of God, I began to chip away at the fear.  Being open to the change of God’s presence because I trusted in it lasting outside of my definitions has made life as a whole less fearful.  I am less wedded to energy in any form staying the form I am experiencing it in today whether that is a relationship with a family member, a job, the look of a person, the song I hear on the radio, or even what I see when I look in the mirror.  Being within the presence of what is lasting is being present within myself.  It is kind of what I think of when I look at the trees in my neighborhood.  They have all been here long before I got here and they will be here long after.  They still stand tall despite the wind, the rain, the sun, and the smog.  Over the years their leaves have grown and fallen off.  They have even lost parts of themselves from a powerful rain storm.  The trees are lasting in their roots, in their connectivity to the core of what gives them life.  It happens below the surface of what I can see, but whatever it is, it is lasting for them.  The more I focus on the lasting energies in my life the fuller, broader, and deeper my experience of life becomes.

It is good to know what we like and what we do not like.  It is helpful to spend our time and energy with things and people with which we feel connection and want to contribute towards.  Our energy grows and expands with our intention and attention.  Our focus and attention is affected by our attitudes and approaches to life.  In theory, the idea of only focusing and putting attention on the things we like, feel connected to, or want to contribute towards makes the most sense.  Unfortunately, theories are not reality.  We cannot go through life never encountering aversions.  Our hearts encourage us to embrace the aversions of our lives with the same interest as the things we find delightful.  It is not to make our lives difficult but to show us that even the things or people we are averse to can teach us something about ourselves and the scope of love.  We do not need to torture ourselves but allow ourselves to be exposed to and open to what we might learn from our aversions.  Our aversions can teach us about our likes.  Our aversions can open our eyes to the presence of love in a person or situation we were certain love did not exist and expose us to a different idea of God.  When we barricade ourselves up out of a desire to protect our hearts we misleadingly believe we are creating greater growth in love. Inadvertently, we end up protecting ourselves from love and aversions.  If we trust the process of life enough to know that if we breathe in the aversion we will eventually breathe it out, we can trust that nothing will drive our core life enhancing, love expanding reality out of who we are.  Nothing outside of us can destroy the core strength of love God created within us.

There are all kinds of analogies of machines to humans when it comes to discussion of energy and power.  On the surface it seems kind of silly. We are not machines.  We have a particular life force.  We do not need to be hooked up to some kind of grid to get power.  We do not need to have interconnecting lines and wires to make sure our messages travel from one place to another.  We do not need to be turned off nor are we ever really turned off to reserve our use.  Or do we?  We are not the self-sustaining apparatuses we claim to be.  Just because we are not connected via wiring doesn’t mean we do not run information from one place to another.  We call them words and ideas and use our voices.  All of which requires various types of waves to travel from one space to another.  If we believe we do not need to be turned off, what would we call sleeping?  If we are ever unsure of what happens if we do not power down, just ask any parent of a newborn or a college student who pulled an all-niter.  What about being connected to some sort of grid or force from which the power originates?  That is one we need to determine for ourselves.  When I am operating independently of any greater power source, I find my energy runs dry.  When I am in touch with something greater than me, I find I am able to handle things and generate energy when and where I was certain none existed.  God or whatever you might call it is the source of our creation.  We would not be here without it and when we attempt to operate without it we eventually find ourselves less powerful in our lives.  The great joke of the ages is that being connected to a power greater than ourselves gives us access to an unlimited life force does not make us less than, it makes us whole.  We were not created to be without God.  We were meant to be in relationship with God.  God did not design us like toys forgotten after Christmas.  God created us out of love.  Love is the most powerful force in the universe. If I have the choice to stay connected to the most powerful force in the universe thus having greater power in my life why would I abandon that to be independent?  It is a moment to moment decision. We are not hopeless or hapless victims of life.  We are creations of life meant to expand the experience of love for ourselves and the world.  If I am not the genesis of love, what makes me think I can be without its true source of power?  Why is it that I try it in certain areas of my life and not others?

We sometimes find ourselves in an experience we want to last forever or one where we feel like it is lasting forever.  Ever is an interesting concept when it comes to how we approach ours lives. It implies a constancy.  A continuance that is somewhat beyond our capability.  We will not live forever.  We cannot be whenever or wherever.  I am not even sure we can be whatever, no matter how often we say it.  At some fixed point in time and space we are present in the moment we are in and no other.  As far as we know.  Yet God’s reality is always constant.  Among other things, the divine is a bridge connecting the gaps in time and space in our experience. God’s perspective and relationship with us meets us wherever we are.  There is no place or time where God is not in existence.  So wherever we are, God is also.  In our creation we were designed with a way no matter where we are, what we are doing, how long it is going on or what we are facing, God is simply a breath away.  Each time we breathe in and out we awaken our heart and open the door to experience God.  We often think God is nowhere to be found in certain circumstances but that is more about our perception of God.  We limit God, yet God continues to show up outside our limits.  God is the ever.

It is hard for us to imagine the delectation experienced by God.  It is even harder for us to imagine that we bring about God’s delectation.  We have some sense of it when we relate it to our relationship to things or experiences we have created.  Yet we only touch upon it.  To know the true delectation of God would be mind-blowing.  So much of our experiences of delectation we attribute to the world.  If we stop to reflect on God as the creator of the world we can draw the creation line to what we find delight in to God.  This is often expressed when we say we love something.  There is a sense within our hearts that when we encounter a delectation we are touching upon something greater than ourselves.  It seems silly to say we love some of the things we love but when we are in the realm of God’s understanding as human beings words cannot adequately describe the experience. Just as when God expresses God’s delectation of us we do not understand.

There are so many hidden gems and fascinations in nature.  It is easy to see how creative God is when we look at all the life around us.  The movement, the color, the shape, the depth, the use of space, and the interaction between it all is mesmerizing.  It is almost as though it is engaged in some big cosmic dance.  A dance I was not invited to or my invitation got lost in the mail.  I saw life as me looking at from the outside. I was unclear what the steps were or why my dance card seemed empty.  For things to change, I had to dare to let go of being on the outside in some self-constructed bubble of safety.  I had to be willing to let my curiosity ignite the connection to my heart which would provide the courage to step into the dance. Once there the breadth and depth of my heart showed me the first person on my dance card was me and God.  God invites me to start my days in a dance with the truth of who I am.  God’s invitation does not get lost anymore.  Sometimes I misplaced it or decline the invitation but God is always ready to dance with me.  I get to touch the light of love when I let go of my ideas about how to keep me safe and protected.  I get to laugh, make mistakes, cry, and experience all kinds of energy when I decide I would rather fumble through the steps on the dance floor in God’s world than stay in the rehearsal room trying to get the choreography perfectly.  God just wants us to see for ourselves what we are made of when we use the breath to put heart into our soul and allow our bodies to take the first step.

We may be open to a number of different things in our lives but how available are we for them?  It is the distinction between a possibility and a choice.  When we take on the premise of availability there is a level of commitment we are making.  I am open to all kinds of things but when you ask me am I available for, it becomes more concrete.  I may think something sounds like a great idea but will I make time for it?  Is it something I am willing to invest effort into or exclude other things so I can be available for it?  Will we be fully available to it or only present in body?  Therein lies the nuance of what availability indicates to us about our lives. On what level are we available?  Emotionally? Spiritually? Intellectually? Physically?  Or all of them.  Life requires energy to show up.  Our level of availability is a marker for how much of our energy we are willing to put into whatever we make ourselves available to or for.  Many of us do not take the time to connect and determine how available we really are and on what level.  We think we want the job, the guy, the house, or the attention.  But on what level are those elements asking us to show up?  God invites us to check in with our hearts on our availability.  There may be something our hearts want to be available to but something stands in the way.  Until we pause and listen in we may find ourselves doing one thing with our bodies and another thing with our heart.  Life takes courage.  The energy of courage lives in our hearts.

There are times when it seems like we can’t get it right. We would really like a redo.  We want a chance to do it again.  At least that is what we tell ourselves.  Do we really want to do it again?  Or do we want a chance to show we have learned from what we got wrong and do it differently?  Again implies a repeat. Of course, the reality of repeat is suspect.  Given how much we change from moment to moment and are impacted by our experience, we cannot possibly repeat exactly. It may look the same but even our sense of it on a deeper level will be different.  Anyone who rode the roller coaster the second time because it was so awesome the first time and did not have the same awesome experience can attest to that. The reality is we are designed for growth.  The reality we are designed to survive, to keep going forward.  The universe we inhabit and the nature of which we are part shares this message with us every day.  We do not see it as it is happening because the changes are so small they are missed by the naked eye.  Also the differences present happen on an energetic level we cannot see.  We do not see the light waves but we know they are there because when we turn on the light, the whole room is visible.  We do not see the radio waves but we can hear the music and the DJ through our radios.  Our existence also emits and receives waves most of which we do not see.  When we slow down, tune in, and let go of relying solely on our eyes to register our experience, we can learn to be sensitive to the shifts and changes happening in and around us.  The changes which make doing it again not realistic.  Our hearts encourage us to awaken to the subtle changes in energy which call us to do or create again from the new place, not from the place of what was done wrong.  What we express as again may be the universe’s way of saying keep moving forward with what you just learned.