dailydatewithgod

Sharing my experiences and understandings of the Great I AM.

Sep 27

Be About Sustaining!

by Colleen
Most of the discussion around spirituality seems to be centered on the explosive moments.  The game changing experiences where we have a shift in consciousness.  It is the result we are looking for in our meditation or the transcendent experience from a ceremony.  These are all wonderful experiences stemming from a spiritual connection. God by nature is fabulous!  Creation is magnificent and there is no reason to expect anything less.  And yet, I find the mystery of the way God  in the sustaining moments of a spiritual life.  The times when showing up for the daily date with God in some quiet and focus on my breath is just there.  I do not walk away feeling better or more peaceful but deep within me it touches upon my heart’s desire to connect.  It is the living out of the desire that become the little aha which can be missed if I am looking for a big one.  It reminds me of the writing of Thomas Merton often used as a prayer:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

 

My prayer for us is the courage to show up for the sustaining moments fueled by the desire of a connection with the divine even if it is not experienced today.

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Sep 26

Be About Infusing!

by Colleen
We can choose what we bring to the world.  We can choose what we allow ourselves to focus on.  We can choose how and when to love.  We can choose what kind of life we want to live.  We do not always get to choose the journey or the path along the way. We do not get to choose the circumstances all the time but how we view them is our choice.  We can decide to infuse the love within us in any given situation or towards any particular person.  By infusing the truth of who we are wherever we find ourselves we choose the experience we are having.  Sometimes we do not wish to bring our best selves to something and so we find it infused with less than what is considered ideal or expected circumstances.  But if we are choosing it then at least we can find joy in that.  As an incest survivor I did not choose the circumstances under which I experienced myself as a victim.  It took me a long time and a lot of missteps but once I realized that I can now choose to show up for the consequences of that experience I am no longer a victim.  I do not always have to like it.  I do not always want it but I am clear if it wasn’t that it would be something else.  I have yet to come across anyone on this planet who has somehow managed to not have to face undesired circumstances.  There are times when walking this journey I have chosen to infuse the best of who I am.  Other times, I did not.  Because God is who God is and love is what God is infusing in any situation, when I turn to see God’s view I see I was learning where love is needed.  I can identify those moments when I feel I have no love to infuse and reach for the hand of God.  I can choose to rely on God to be God and do the infusing.

My prayer for us is the willingness to notice when we are not infusing our circumstances with love and reach for the hand of God to do the infusing for us today.

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Sep 25

Be About Gentleness!

by Colleen
Have you ever noticed the way a bird is perched on a tree?  It sits there in the balance knowing its feet are securely connected to the limb of the tree and looks all around.  There is a gentleness in which all of nature expresses itself.  The way the wind blows the leaves of trees or brushes up against our skin.  There is the steady and gentle force of which grass and plant grow from the earth.  There is a gentleness with which blood and oxygen move through the body.  Our heart initiate this gentleness of spirit that has a thread running throughout life.  I know whenever I am caught up in the harshness of my mind, if I drop into my heart, I am less burdened.  Perhaps our hearts are trying to tell us something.  God is ready to help us see through the lens of gentleness.  It means letting go of us forcing something to happen and trusting in the universe’s good will for us regardless of what happens.  This is not easy and for me maybe part of why gentleness of heart is something I have had to painstakingly learn.  It is only painful because I resisted it.  How can being gentle cause anything to happen?  It does not make sense in my mind.  It makes sense to God and it is the vehicle through which God creates.  If I can trust it as an operating design of God I am willing to let go a little and test it out for myself.

My prayer for us is the curiosity to explore using gentleness when approaching situations and see what happens today.

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Sep 24

Be About Emitting!

by Colleen
Often times we can be unaware of the effect we have on other people.  We tend to think of it in terms of what we say or do but we also interact with people energetically.  We know it with others when you walk in a room and before the other person says or does something you sense they are upset.  Energetically we are all emitting the energy of our being.  The energy within our hearts extends far beyond our bodies.  Science has actually measured the energy field of our hearts as extending six feet outside of our physical body.  The feelings and experiences we carry in our hearts are emitting from us even without us saying or doing anything.  God invites us to take a closer look at what our hearts are designed to resonate with in strength and that which deplete our heart’s energy.  If we pause, check in with our breath, and be in the moment we are in we can begin to discern what our hearts are telling us about where our energy is with a particular person or experience.  I often have to ask God to help me notice what I am emitting in any given situation that I am not aware of.  It is not about finding ourselves at fault or always being positive or pretending we don’t feel the things we feel.  It is about acknowledging for ourselves that our hearts house such power and presence in our lives and the lives of others.  Why not do our part to take good care of it and pay attention to what it is telling us when we recognize what we are emitting or receiving from what others are emitting?
 

My prayer for us is the curiosity to notice what our hearts are emitting and pay attention to what it may be trying to tell us about our relationship to love today.

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Sep 23

Be About Loveliness!

by Colleen
There is something about beauty that screams God’s name.  Okay, maybe not screams, more like quietly whispers.  The subtlety of a whisper does not quite convey the way we can be overcome by God’s loveliness.  It is the enchantment of nature.  It is the scene between two people that makes us cry.  It is the joy of laughter from the gut.  All these lovely elements of our natural lives that hints at a message being spread far and wide that life has this secret.  The secret that captures our hearts when we let it.  It is the deep knowing that is touched when we witness the loveliness of life.  It is the light hitting the trees in the early morning or the warm touch of a friend when we need reassurance.  It is seeing beautiful human being grace the screen or watching a flowing skirt lift and fall from the ballerina’s body.   When we are given the opportunity to witness beauty in its truest form our hearts can stop just for the moment.  The loveliness of life shared by God is to allow us to reunite with the energy of our hearts.  It is the continual invitation amidst the mad and sometime harsh experience of life reminding us we are part of something transcending the madness.

My prayer for us is the curiosity to notice the shift in our heart’s energy when we find ourselves witnesses to the loveliness of God today.

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Sep 22

Be About Unification!

by Colleen
It takes conscious and consistent effort to do the opposite of what is our default system. Our brain is designed to ensure our survival for which I am personally grateful.  The survival seems from all the scientific studies seems to be one from the early tribal days.  In those times it was essential that we stick with who and what we know.  Any kind of difference could be perceived as a threat of death.  The idea of being unified meant being one in proximity, ideas, and beliefs with people who looked like you and lived their lives the way you do.  Now in a multicultural world that is connected across nations and boundaries are slipping away and being broken down, we are experiencing a shift unlike anything we have ever known.  The people and ideas we may want to embrace go against most of what our biological design was meant to protect us from.  This means the choice to engage in unification across cultures, genders, philosophies, and ideas is causing a lot of discomfort.  We feel the discomfort and think there is something wrong.  The interpretation of unfamiliar as discomfort causes our minds to set up boundaries to keep us from going outside the norm.  We look for reasons as to why we are feeling uncomfortable and blame the situation or the differences themselves. When we pause and take a step back, we can see from God’s perspective that the differences we see are only part of the experience.  God encourages us to welcome some discomfort as we incorporate our heart’s desire for unification with all of God’s presents to the world.  On my daily date with God I learned to practice the simple discipline of sitting in the discomfort even though all I want to do is distract myself.  Learning to do this is God’s way of showing us we can expand ourselves beyond our mindset of differences and find reasons to unify ourselves with all of creation.  Our minds and bodies may be still running programming from tribal days, but our hearts are continually open to the upgrades God invites us to incorporate.

My prayer for us is the courage to stay when it is uncomfortable or unfamiliar so we expand our hearts desire for unification with all of God’s creations.

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Sep 21

Be About Continuity!

by Colleen
God is often described as everlasting.  The reality is that there is no place where God ends and something else begins.  Love is the very essence that contains all of existence and non-existence.  The continuity factor is what allows God not to be dismayed by our ability to continue to show up.  God is a power greater than us by the sheer fact that God never runs out of energy. God is energy.  God never goes away. God grows more and more as we become more open to the possibility of love showing up in our lives as love does.  As we are able to let go of our preconceived notions of what God is and what love is, the more we ready ourselves to be overtaken by the continuity of the presence of love.  In this continuity of presence we learn what it means to love.  We do not have to define who we are by the expectations of the world or our heads alone.  The continuous nature of God means that whenever we choose to let go of worldly ideas of who we are or should be, God is ready to show us who we are in God’s eyes. The opportunities are always present and will continue to be as long as God is God.  We can step into the continuity or we can dip our toes in but it flows like a river

My prayer for us is the courage to let go of our preconceived notions of God and love and step into the continuity of God’s presence so we may see through God’s eyes today.

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Sep 20

Be About Framing!

by Colleen
When a picture, poster, painting or the like are important to us we frame it.  Framing creates a boundary and makes the item stand out. We are drawn to the most elaborately framed items in a museum.  In some cases the frame is as much a piece of the art as that which it is framing.  God is the framing of our hearts.  Love is the framing of our lives. Light is the framing of life.  When we frame our thinking in the context of a conversation, it keeps us in the here and now.  When we are paying attention to something that is framed, we are not busy trying to figure out what is not in the frame.  God encourages us to begin framing our lives based on our design.  The beauty of who we are as beings created by God is framed in love.  By our consistent attention to the tendering of our hearts we are able to live what we are meant to live within the framing of our lives.  The love within our hearts which we begin to attune to through our breath provides us with the insight and the tools we need when connect to our mind to be the best version of ourselves.  The framing of our lives is designed by God as the essence of our being.  God is happy to receive all that does not fit inside the framing of love and show us how to use it to make the picture of our lives stand out even more as evidence of love.  We are often so busy keeping it from showing up around the framing, we drain the energy from the true picture of our lives. God is the artist of creation and uses all of life to share beauty.  If we want to be in the framing of love as God designed it might help to allow God to show us what it means to live fully in the frame.

My prayer for us is the courage to connect with our hearts and experience being in the framing of love as designed by God today.

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Sep 19

Be About Refuge!

by Colleen
For most of my life I believed in the idea of God rescuing me.  Most of my prayers were me pleading God to get me through this or show me what to do all in an effort to exit the experience I was having.  After many years of daily dates with God I realized my perception of God had shifted.  I no longer was seeking God to rescue me but to remind me I was not alone in whatever circumstance I was in.  I was willing to trust that the peace of God’s presence would provide the refuge needed to connect with the spirit of truth within me.  Through that cleared connection and the support of God, I would be able to discern what my role was in whatever situation I was in.  God is the refuge under which the truth of me cannot be maimed, scarred, broken, or destroyed.  It is kept in sacredness by the truth of who God is.  As long as I am able to connect in some way to that truth I do not need to exit out of situations.  I can be with feelings, I can be with discomfort, and I can be with my stinking thinking without needing someone or something to rescue me. In the refuge of the power of God in my heart I can expand it beyond what I think it is capable of.  I can grow and learn to bring my heart and the love within it fully to people and situations I previously had nothing but contempt for.  That goes for those within me and outside of me.  My faith in God is not as a rescuer but as refuge when I cannot of myself manage to be where I am in the moment.  God is always in the moment and is happy to have my company when I so choose.

My prayer for us is the willingness to recognize the refuge God embodies in God’s unwavering knowledge of the love we truly are and the power of life it gives us today.

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Sep 18

Be About Aiming!

by Colleen
God’s goal is us.  What is our goal?  Are we aiming for God?  Is love the intention?  God invites us to take a look at what is moving us in whatever direction we are moving in.  It is not about having the answers or being perfect in keeping God in mind as we move through our day-to-day lives.  It is a question of where is the movement and intention coming from.  Our hearts are designed to aim for God.  Our hearts know and remember what created them.  Aiming for God is the natural inclination of the energy of our hearts.  The more in tune with the intention of our hearts the more we will discover ourselves aiming for God in every avenue of life without trying.  It begins and ends with our breath.  It can help to place our hands on our hearts as we go through the day.  It can be a reminder to notice if what we are aiming for in the moment is in alignment with our hearts or not.  God is there to remind us as often as needed that aiming for God is the peace we are searching for throughout our whole system.

My prayer for us is the willingness to take the time and connect with our hearts so whatever we are doing it is aiming for love today.

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