dailydatewithgod

I have learned in my short time on this planet that the world makes a big to do about our goals and plans. Our spirit and soul make a big to do about the process.  Our goals are usually sparked by our interests and desires which come from within us. From those desires we form goals about what we want, what we hope for, and look at how we can make them happen.  Thus begins the process.  Because life is always in session and from God’s perspective we are here to learn, our progression towards the goal also shapes who we are becoming.  According to the outside world, we are only defined by the achievement or lack of achievement of the goal.  How we are showing up and what we are growing from on the way to achieving develops is what God is concerned about.  They both play an integral role in who we are being in our lives.  If we did not have a goal there would be no process of getting to the goal.  God is there within our hearts when we connect to the creation of what the goal is as well as the shaping of our spirit in the process of working towards the goal.  No matter what we are actually doing and experiencing in the world, God’s goals for us are to be the manifestation of the love we are.  We can measure how far or close we are to achieving our goal by knowing how close or far we are from being aligned with love at any moment in the process.

There is an elevated sense of presence when we are watching something versus seeing something.  Watching conveys a level of active participation. We pay babysitters to watch our children not see them.  So why when it comes to God we focus on us seeing God and God watching us?  Maybe our experience of God would shift if we flipped the roles. If we took an active role in watching for God and how God shows up in our lives we might find ourselves witnessing the multitude of ways God shows up.  Perhaps by taking the reigns of watching away from God, we would not fear what it is we think God will find.  We could come out of hiding ourselves from God.  We might be willing to be seen by God and let go of feeling watched by God.  If we open ourselves to watching for God, we can adjust our vision and learn to see as God sees.

The grandeur of God is found in the simplicity of love and love’s every day expressions.  It is easy for us to look for the big events and overtures for signs of importance and value.  We do not often see the profound and sacred nature of a simple interaction with another human being.  I am reminded often that the world is big and loud and my ego is drawn to that.  It tells me the little stuff doesn’t matter, especially if no one but me sees it.  But how many hearts are needed to be witnesses to love and be affected by it?  Why do we not see the hallowing in eye contact and a kind touch on the hand?  Is not love enough within itself that any expression of it make the experience hallowed?  What would it take to make hallowing an everyday multiple times a day occurrence?  God sees all presences of love as hallowing.  What blinders do we have on that we take it for granted?  What would we need to let go of to be present to the hallowing love brings in the small and seemingly innocuous ways? Maybe it is just not as hard as we make it out to be.  God has designed us out of love and the reason we know a hallowing experience when it happens is because of the recognition of ourselves in it. If we are open to the many ways love shows up that are outside our expectations, the more hallowing events we will witness.

Many spiritual people, including myself, have refered to themselves as seekers.  It presents the idea of a continual process.  It gives the impression we are looking for something we do not already have.  I think of it as more of a process of reconnecting.  It is about moving in the direction of revealing what lies under the layers of what is not our true essence to reconnect to what has been there all along.  It can be prompted by searching and finding elements of this experience outside ourselves.  Ultimately it is the connection within us to the thing or idea outside of us that opens the door to seeing what we had not seen before.  God is basically hiding in plain sight.  It is not until we let go of what we think God is and begin seeking to find God as God does will we see again.  It involves turning inward and sitting through the noise that arises when we get quiet.  It means not abandoning ourselves when we see a side of ourselves we do not like revealed in someone else.  God does not make it hard to seek him. She delights in the reconnecting with us.  We are the ones who make it more complicated because in our minds we think of God as being so vast and multifaceted that it must be complicated.  We have forgotten in our seeking that God does not need us to understand God.  God just wants to be with us in our hearts and is waiting for the invitation to reveal love.

The boundless nature of God’s love is within us because it is how we were created.  It is hard for us to imagine such infinitude because it cannot be conceived of by our minds.  Our hearts know it as the music to which they beat and the rhythm of the flow of information it sends out.  It is the notes to which the music of our life’s energy is orchestrated.  If we are able to admit our inadequacy to understand the infinitude present in our lives, we can open our hearts to it.  Our minds are well-meaning and always want to be in the know.  Mine certainly does.  It feels uncertain to not understand something.  It is likely to feel vulnerable and uncomfortable to be moved by a force within our hearts that our mind does not comprehend.  Yet in the surrender of the need to know and understand we get to be in the moment with fullness.  Just for the brief breath of the moment in time, the infinitude of love can hold us and carry us through to the next breath.  It takes faith and the belief that God is for us, not against us.  For some of us, we cannot begin to touch the infinitude of love until we let go of the idea of a God who is against us or waiting for us to mess up.  When we are ready to do so, the true nature of God will spring up from the infinitude of energy present in our hearts and we will know it with every fiber of our being.

It has been my experience and because of it I believe all things are restored in love. Whatever it is that we feel we have lost or is broken by our experiences in the world, God will bring the gift of restoration. If it is something we have been designed with, there is nothing the world can do to keep the restoration from happening.  As an incest survivor who has and continues to walk through facing what seemed like the destruction of my sense of innocence, a sense that my body is my own, and the understanding that I get to say what is okay and not okay in my body and in my life, it is crucial for me to believe that God restores all those elements to me.  I have moved through many phases in this process of recovery which could be called a process of restoration to the eyes of God.  It is about letting go of my perception of  loss and realize it was a disconnection.  A disconnection that I initiated because it was safer to do so than face the unfathomable reality of what I was experiencing.  God however, did not see the same loss.  God held for safe keeping all that has always been mine gifted by Him at my creation.  She never bought into the idea that I was separate from my sense of safety, being a sexual being, or having a voice to say what is okay with me and what is not.  God provides the restoration to show me that I no longer have to believe the lies I created in order to survive.  In my experience, whatever our challenges in life are, we have all had some sense of brokenness and loss in need of restoration. The beauty of the experience is realizing all we need to initiate the restoration is to acknowledge that God has it ready and waiting when we are willing to let go of our perception.

One of the more subtle powers of a daily prayer and meditation date with God is the heightened observational qualities one develops.  There is a lot going on in our day-to-day experiences and the information we are taking in is more than we can handle cognitively.  Our minds have a convenient filter system so we do not pass out or die from the amount of stimulation.  It is magnificently designed.  In meditation I learned to be a witness to my thoughts, body sensations, feelings, and everything around me.  In that time of quietness it is easy to become attuned to the subtleties of what is happening in my experience because it is devoid of distractions.  In the flutter of daily life it is not as easy.  Yet the practice of witnessing allows it to become an option even amidst the distractions.  Over time I have seen great power in being able to pause before reacting and notice what I am thinking and feeling.  It is like getting a window into my default perception. It allows me to question the assumptions and beliefs that kick into gear as soon as a situation occurs.  When we take the time to witness our lives we can see things with greater balance.  It takes some of the charge out of the moment we might have previously ridden into an electric storm.  God invites us to practice witnessing so we can begin to connect with the way our heart sees things.  Our minds speak the quickest and the loudest.  Our hearts are more subtle.  When we pause to witness the direction of our minds we can peel it back before we jump into reaction.

There is information that we receive in our minds and we think it is a direct ingestion into our minds.  More accurately, what we perceive in our minds is an interpretation of what we are picking up through our senses.  Specific facts or information spoken to us are filtered through our hearing and incorporate the tone and speed of the information.  Our visual sense picks up information on who the person is who is speaking.  Our perception is also influenced by what we are feeling ,smelling, and tasting at the time we receive the information spoken to us.  We are not a computer that receives cold data.  Everything goes through our sensing.  On my daily dates, God has taught me to pay attention to what I am sensing that may have nothing to do with what is actually happening.  Our reaction to an experience is not based on the actual event, it is based on what we are sensing while the event is occurring.  Our mind then interprets the situation and we form our version of what happened.  This is how two people can be present in the same situation and have completely different versions of what happened. If we attune ourselves to our inner sensing we can develop an awareness of what our default perceptions are.  As we grow in knowledge of how we are operating we can make a realistic attempt to choose to put our default aside and sense what is happening with a newness. Pausing and taking a breath can be the portal to paying attention.  God wants us to have the opportunity to embrace being in the moments we are in and sense them for what they are, not what we already know.

When we distance ourselves from our expectations we are able to assess things the way they are.  It is learning to live life on life’s terms.  God encourages us to be in the actuality of our experience because it is being in the now. It is the now where God meets us. It is about embracing the gifts of the moment which sometimes look like gifts and sometimes look like trash.  Only when we assess and accept the actuality of what is happening can we determine what requires a change.  It is God inviting us into a life of self-honesty.    The actuality of our thoughts, our feelings, our perceptions, and our actions are what make us who we are in the moment we are in.  Letting go of the judgment about it and simply accepting what actually is makes room for us to breathe through it.  Then we can invite God in to share how God sees our actuality.  When we tune into the actual rhythm of our heart within an experience we get a window into how we are interpreting the moment we are in.  If we are busy in our heads about how it is supposed to be and how it is not what we had imagined, we lose the opportunity and the gift of the actual moment.  I know for me that the opportunity and the openness to change only happens when I first accept the actuality of what is happening.  If I am consumed by the stories in my head of expectation and wishful thinking, I cannot hear the rhythms of my heart.  I do not sense attunement with God or have the capacity to shift from the fantasy in my head when I am void of actuality.  Returning to my breath, linking with the hand of God, and seeing what is actually in front of me is where change begins.

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.