dailydatewithgod

There are many things in this world that we may think it would be better off to be protected from than to experience.  There is some level at which this may be true. Unfortunately when we go into experiences there is no way we can know how all of it is going to go and we may miss out on something essential.  Our minds have this fantastical way of imagining by default the worse case scenario. It is what keeps us safe. This is a good thing.  However, it can sometimes be to our detriment.  If we spend too much time believing everything our head tells us we would eventually never go outside let alone engage with other human beings.  Just the statistics on the number of germs we would encounter is enough to make anyone stay inside.  We can be smart about things and ask questions.  We can touch base with those who have gone through things before and hear their experience.  At the end of the day the greatest impact will be our own experience.  It takes courage to show up and live life.  The one staying power we have is knowing that God is always sheltering our hearts.  Not in the way we would but shutting it off or barring it from any outside influence.  God’s sheltering is in the knowing of the unchanging nature of the power of love within us.  No experience we can engage in can ever change the nature of our hearts.  We make experience some dents and bruises but the life force of love is more powerful than any temporary mark.  If we can garner up the curiosity and willingness to trust God, we do not have to spend time sheltering ourselves the way our minds would have us do.  We can smile at a stranger and look them in the eye.  We can have an uncomfortable conversation.  We can ask others for help.  We can admit we don’t have the answers.  We can try something and fail at it.  When we know we can rely upon God to do the sheltering of our hearts we can live and go where our hearts lead us.

There is a lot of stress in the world over how different people do or do not understand God.  Has it occurred to anyone that the way we each understand God has more to do with how God has chosen to reveal himself to us than what we conceive of God?  Perhaps the reason the scientist is at peace with his conception of an intelligent universe but does not believe in a God creator is because God has chosen to reveal herself that way to the scientist?  Whose to say just because lots of people conceive of God as a being of creation who has watches over us makes us right and everyone who does not have the same conception wrong?  How is it that we do not trust whatever conception we have of God which brings us peace and allows us to operate with love in the world is enough for us?  Why must it be the same for others?  When we are in alignment with whatever conception we have of God in such a way that allows us to grow in love and create harmony among our fellows and our world, how is this wrong?  Is it more right that we have a conception of God that makes us afraid to grow and be who we are because God will judge as right or wrong when we die?  If my conception of God is one that leads me to focus primarily on my faults and doing things perfectly because I am somehow inherently flawed, is that truly what my heart conceives of God or is it the world’s conception?  These are questions our hearts draw us to ask.

We carry messages to each other through language.  When we use language its meaning changes depending on the tone in which it is used.  In the same way that a minor or major note conveys a different message of the music. It comes down to the vibration which is the energy of the sound. The vibrations are what impact us not the actual words.  By themselves they are only symbols with no meaning.  The vibration creates a context for the meaning.  We notice it when we adjust our tone around babies or animals who do not understand what the actual words are.  All they have to work with is the vibration conveyed through the tone. The more we pay attention to how we are affected by vibration and the impact of aligning our heart in the vibration of love, the more we can intentionally send the vibration of love with whatever words we use.

The mystery of our hearts lies in their depth.  It can seem beyond our reach because it is foreign to us.  To get through the depths we are called dive into what seems like darkness.  We are invited to a time and space of stillness with God.  It is much easier to stay distracted by the world.  It is bright and shiny and already revealed to us.  The deepening we are called to requires courage.  Courage comes from the heart.  The tools we need to take the journey into the depth of our being are already within us.  God wants us to know ourselves fully.  God desires for us the ability to trust and move through life relying on the truth of our hearts.  Deepening our relationship and understanding of our hearts is a necessary process.  It is not easy, but it is simple.  God will be with us every step of the process.  At least that is what my experience has been each day I show up on our date.

It is important for us to keep growing.  If we aren’t growing we are dying.  I have learned on my daily dates with God how to be with being uncomfortable.  It is not easy just to sit and meditate, especially when one first starts out.  There is a lot of noise going through one’s head.  Sometimes it still goes on during our date.  The discipline of showing up each day no matter what knowing I was offering that time to spend with my Creator made me willing.  This in turn trained me on how to handle uncomfortable situations and experiences. I do not like them but see how they enable me to grow.  The funny thing is we do not have to seek out discomfort.  It is actually very feasible.  It is present everywhere.  As human beings we just usually opt for the comfort otherwise known as the familiar.  We deserve it.  We work so hard.  Insert usual excuses here.  The brilliance of an uncomfortable experience is that it masks itself as impossible.  We can’t deal with the feelings.  We don’t like that person.  Our mind’s will tell us a million different reasons because the discomfort is usually unfamiliarity. Unfamiliarity breeds fear.  Fear kicks in survival mode.  Recognizing the feasibility of the situation is what occurs when we stop and take a breath.  We recognize that we can not only survive the unfamiliar, we can grow from it.   No thought or feeling can kill us.  The stories we tell ourselves about how the future will work out if we allow ourselves to face the discomfort are seriously disproportionate to reality.   Have you noticed that things do not turn out as bad as we imagine they will?  God reminds us in our hearts when we breathe that things are way more feasible if guided by the heart.

From the perspective of self-sufficiency, needing help or helping others seems like a polar opposites.  Extremes however are only a small part of the picture.  Most everything is interconnected.  On the path of life’s discovery where we learn who we are and what our role is in the world, we see things are rarely just one or the other.  As we grow towards self-actualization, determining which path is ours and carving out the life we feel we are meant to live, involves others.  No man is an island.  What I do  affects others no matter how solitary it is.  Along the individual path we see where we are of help to others and where they are of help to us.  Helping is simply a way of interacting with other human beings and the natural world.  It is not as is touted in some individualistic pursuits, a sign of weakness.  Helping provides us with a way to engage with others.  Not because we are better than or do not need help ourselves but because in that moment we can make a contribution. It lightens our hearts to connect with each other and the world around us.  When that connection involves helping we not only lighten the burden of others, but we allow the light of our hearts to shine through us.  Helping is not a hierarchical situation unless we turn it into one.  The reality is at one point or another in our lives, no matter how much of an individual we are, we are going to need help as well.  God invites us to see helping as an opportunity to practice being engaged in relationship with one another.

One of the ways God speaks to us is through an awakening.  We are able to see something we could not see before.  We wake up with a new insight.  We experience the dawning as though we have access to a part of our mind we did not have before.  It seems as though it appears out of nowhere, much like light out of the darkness when the sun rises.  However, much like the dawning of a new day it does not happen suddenly.  There are usually forces involved way before which lead up to it. The earth is turning around the sun all night so when it is visible on our end it is not like a light switch that was turned on.  The dawning of insight into an area of our lives is preceded by events and decisions which facilitate its happening.  Perhaps we come to a space of surrender or acceptance.  We might release an idea attached to this or ask God to help us see things differently.  This occurs over time and when the moment is ripe, the dawning happens.  The brilliance of experiencing a dawning is in the power to receive it.  By the time it comes, we have let down our guard or decided to put it aside for a time.  So when the dawning hits us it feels profound and illuminating because we have emptied ourselves and are ready to incorporate it fully.  The dawning stays with us because it is not just something that sparks and then burns out.  Our hearts are primed and ready to breathe it in.  It is the realization that what is before us is a whole new opportunity, just like a new day.  I have not found a way to create a formula to create more dawning so I can distinguish when something will stick and is worth letting go to create a space for dawning.  I suppose if I did I would not need God.  Needing God is the only formulaic element I have encountered..  When I am able to express to God my lack of power, frustration, or willingness to admit I cannot think my way out of something; I have made a step in the direction toward dawning.

We are very good at convincing ourselves about things which go along with our core beliefs even if at the outset by themselves we would not go along with them.  It is actual phenomena known as confirmation bias.  Typically as humans when we are presented with contrary evidence we will believe our original belief more emphatically.  There is a certain level of deception operating within us to be able to turn a blind eye to information that clearly refutes what we believe.   It is a protection mechanism and serves a purpose for our survival.  These days it gets in the way of open and sincere communication options.  It puts up barriers between people and causes them to stop engaging in conversation with anyone other than with whom they know they agree.  It is disheartening to see this happen on the grand scale in which it seems to be occurring.  God invites us to begin with sincerity of heart as we approach ourselves and then others.  When we spend time together on our date, God brings in the light of truth. This light allows me to take a look with the warmth of love at what I might be deceiving myself about.  Sincerity begins by acknowledging that it is happening.  The next step is to identify how it is benefiting me to lean into deception versus sincerity. God does not chastise me. God simply encourages all of us to notice what is working for us and against us.  If living in deception is something I need at the moment, I have a choice to accept it or not.  Then I can look at if it is allowing me to use the full power and capacity of my heart.  Sincerity comes from the space of the heart.  Deception operates in the mind.  When we take the time to pause and check in we can create the bridge between the heart and the mind.  God is there to guide us in this process. God knows we can operate more in alignment with the truth of who we are when we do so with sincerity.

When we step out into the sunlight of the day we are hit with the power and the illumination of the sun.  We revel in the beauty and energy it provides our planet.  Our whole lives are built around when the light of the sun is available.  IF we go too long without it we are deprived of nutrients.  If we are exposed to it too much we get burned.  The reason we are affected by it is because we are a part of creation as a whole. The same Creator who designed the cells in our bodies set up the orbit of the planets.  God orchestrated their interplay and so we are affected by it and we affect the system of creation.  To deny this would be to deny part of the truth of who we are.  When we are functioning at our truest level from our hearts our energy contributes positively to the world around us.  It is not just what we say or do.  It is the intention behind it and taking responsibility for what we are creating.  The prime way we know we have an effect is because we can create.  We take ideas and make them happen.  We engage with others and the natural world and things shift.  This is not an accident.  God designed us to be interactive with each other and the world around us.  We are a creation and we can create.  If we take the invitation of life seriously, we will know in our hearts we make an impact.  It is about choosing to do so in a way which contributes to the greater good.  When we connect with our Creator and choose to see ourselves as God sees us, we can create from a place of love.  It is up to us to own the creation we are and create from that reality.

When we have a moment of clarity in which light is shined upon something that only seemed to hang out in the dark we have a decision to make.  Sometimes we draw comfort from not knowing.  We can continue to operate as we always have and do not need to engage in discomfort so we don’t mind the lack of lucidity.  This very human behavior stands in stark contrast to a world expounding the idea we are valued by how much we know.  Especially when it comes to lucidity in areas of our lives that people do not normally talk about, we definitely think darkness is our best bet.  We are certain if it were to be brought to the light others would pounce on it and condemn us.  On my daily dates with God I have begun to see the areas of darkness are only dark because of the glasses through which I am viewing them. When I use the eyes of my heart, lucidity is the best option. God creates us with the courage to bring the light to the darkness. God dwelling in our hearts does not seek to condemn what lucidity unveils.  If we are to trust God is a power greater than ourselves, then we are invited to hold the possibility that God’s view of darkness is different from ours.