dailydatewithgod

The world is so loud sometimes it is overwhelming.  With so many voices and visuals garnering for our attention, it is hard to distinguish which ones to allow in closer.  God longs to be close to us.  An intimate relationship with our Creator is what we are made for.  Perhaps that is why God uses intimations to speak to the inner most parts of ourselves.  These inklings, whispers, and notions which inform our reality are only accessible when we slow down and get quiet.  When we engage in prayer and mediation of any form we are doing just that.  All these various religious traditions are designed to draw us into an intimate relationship with God where she can speak in intimations.  He will have our attention because of the intimate nature of our experience with ourselves and God.  The approach to this is not limited to specific rituals or services, it only requires a pause.  Over the years of my daily dates with God I have come to cultivate the pause throughout my day which allows me to hear and sense the intimations coming to me from God.  We have an intimate relationship which has allowed me to bare open all the parts of myself with a willingness I can only describe as miraculous.  The Christian mystic and Carmelite nun, Teresa of Avila writes in her book Interior Castle of the stages of our union with God.  She describes it as the passage of our soul through several stages to reach the deepest relationship with God.  We are all receiving invites from God all day long to embark on this intimate journey but because of the intimation style of communication it sometimes gets lost in the noise.

I used to think that in order to be certain about anything I had to be certain about everything.  Somehow in my mind in order to move forward and take action I had to weigh all the factors, have all the information, and know for sure it would work out.  Ha!  No wonder I struggled.  So when I would go ahead despite having what I thought was necessary, I was ready with all kinds of excuses and explanations so I could explain why it didn’t work out.  Only upon encountering others who would shrug and not be bothered by the fact that things did not go as planned did I begin to see how ridiculous the pressure was that I put myself under.  I was worried others would not understand and in order for me to feel safe, you had to approve and the only way you would approve was if you understood.  Is it any wonder I was trying to numb out the pain of life?  Talk about holding other people hostage to my perfectionist ideals because I needed them to understand and approve.  When I got into recovery I learned the distinction between understanding and acceptance.  I learned how to accept things I did not understand and I saw how others did that for me.  They did not understand why my ideas or plans didn’t work out but they accepted that I had put forth my best effort and had the intention to make it work.  Life does not always work out the way we want. In my growing daily relationship with God I have come to accept and even welcome the experiences that do not work out the way I want as evidence that God has something else in mind.  I am meant to meet the people on the stairs instead of the elevator that is not working.  My body is meant to move differently than I planned because the machines I wanted to use are all taken. My lack of acceptance is my unwillingness to be open to God’s plan instead of mine.  Sometimes it is the smallest plans that are hardest to let go of.  I can also think of many things I am grateful did not work out the way I wanted.  I would have missed out on all kinds of adventures and meeting of people.  Being willing to accept that I cannot change what has happened up to this moment regardless of whether I understand it or not is much more freeing than stewing about how it is wrong because I messed it up and didn’t plan well enough.  The real question is even though I cannot understand the mercy of God, am I willing to accept it? Can I accept that God sees me as whole and full of love even when all I see is brokenness and fear?

Have you ever wondered how it feels for a knife to be sharpened?  Does it hurt?  Does it feel good?  Does the knife go through the experience of being rubbed repeatedly against a hard cold surface because it knows that it will enable it to be its full potential?  I realize the absurdity of the questions but when I am using a dull knife it is purposeless.  Why even have a knife?  I need it to do something it was designed to do but is not up to the task because it has not been sharpened.  It makes me wonder if I resist sharpening by certain experiences because all I can do is think about being pushed up against a hard surface and enduring something, sometimes repeatedly.  But perhaps that experience is the very one that will enable me to live my purpose.  Maybe if I am able to connect to a growing experience as I am going through it with the greater purpose in mind, it will not be so painful?  Wishful thinking on some level for me.  I know when I am in the thick of walking through intense anger, processing a strong emotional trigger, faced with someone whom I am not able to see the good in, experiencing conflict of any kind, or in physical pain, I am only wishing it is over soon.  I have learned that over and over these kind of experiences occur.  Certainly they are not all super intense but who likes to not feel good for any length of time?  On my daily dates with God I have seen how God does not have the same fear of pain as I do.  The sense I get from God is that the pain is only real when I believe it is or think it is all there is. Maybe my approach to sharpening is what I need God’s help with the most.  God, show me how you see this?  Can I be grateful that if I am experiencing a sharpening that it is because I have been living up to my full potential and it is time to prepare me for more?  Am I being sharpened in my relationship to this person because it will allow me to connect to them and others from our hearts because afterwards I will be more easily living as designed? 

Years ago when I had my spiritual experience of Jesus opening up my heart when I was standing on the beach one night, I’ll never forget the message I was given.  As tears were streaming down my face and I felt like my chest was breaking apart, I heard God gently whispering in my ear, “I know this hurts, but I am right here. We need to clear out the anger in here in order to make room for the love.”  I assumed that it meant I needed to get rid of anger.  It seemed to go along with all the messages we receive from the world about good emotions and bad emotions.  We are supposed to have the good ones, and not the bad ones. But why would God have given us all of them if we were not supposed to have them?  I believe Jesus was indicating to me that we needed to clear the anger out of my heart not because it was bad or wrong to exist but because it had gotten into a place it did not belong. I was using it to shut down my heart and keep others at a distance. Emotions are indications of energy.  Energy is designed to be in motion.  Getting stuck in one place it loses its purpose.  It is no longer a helpful indication because it cannot communicate when it is stuck.  God wants us to have the full in motion experience of life and it may mean clearing things out of where they have taken hold.  When love is present in our hearts it is alive and moving throughout us.  It thrives through the heart.  Anger had lost its way in me because I pushed it down, made it wrong, and did not allow it to inform me.  Clearing it out of my heart allowed me to come face to face with it and over the years slowly make peace with it.  Only now am I learning to let it provide information for me versus drive me to shut down and push people away and close off my heart.  Clearing areas of our lives from time to time allows us to evaluate if we are making room for the vital purpose for which we are meant and if those areas of our lives are functioning as God designed versus what we have created.

I used to think everything in life was about getting it done.  Whether it was a task or having a feeling, the focus was on what it would be like to not be faced with it in the moment.  Or my intention was really about the feeling I would have on the other side of it, not the actual experience itself. In a finite world that works very well.  But from God’s infinite perspective there is no done. It is all part of the growing and evolving as we are designed to do.  A Course In Miracles states that we meet God in the moment because NOW is the space where the finite and infinite meet.  So if I am not being with what is happening in this moment, I will miss being with God.  I miss out on an opportunity to spend time in the presence of the one who loves me more than I could ever know or understand. After all these years of our daily prayer and meditation dates, you would think I would know this in my bones.  Perhaps it is why they call it a meditation practice. It is very much the daily practice of just being and bolstering the capacity to focus on being right here, right now.  I now see it spilling it over into all areas of my life.  I am more at peace and interested in the process than the end result.  I may not like the moment I am in, but I know how to be there with myself and not run.  I can recognize easier when my head is not where my feet are. Bolstering the focus on the now increases the practice and the capacity to not to want or need to be anywhere else.  It is simple but not easy.  It is a letting go of my plans and trusting things to unfold as God has planned and God has my best interest at heart.  God is committed to my growth in love.  God meets me in the now to remind me I am loved because I am love not because of what I got done.

The energy of life enables us to move from one thing to another.  Our thoughts, our feelings, our bodies, our experiences.  The day starts and the day ends.  Energy is the movement of ongoing change. God encourages us to walk with him on this path of life.  God offers the energy needed to live fully whether it is already innate in us or obtained by accepting her invitation to see things as he sees things.  The frequency with which we choose to bring God into our lives increases the power of the frequency of God’s presence in our lives.   The more we are open to God’s vision and God’s interpretation of what is happening in our lives, the less we are weighted down by having to figure it out and have all the answers.  In the beginnings of our relationship with God, most of us found ourselves attending to it with more frequency. As the newness wore off it became less and less.  Sounds like a lot of human relationships, doesn’t it?  As we make a daily choice to increase the frequency of our time with our Creator, we can allow ourselves to be unburdened and live with greater freedom than on our own.

Within our makeup are all the capacities needed for survival.  If we are in danger, we will be able to figure out a way to escape it either by freezing, fleeing or fighting. Its is part of our basic make-up.  What it looks like in real-time can be different for each person.  It is in our design to be able to endure situations that test our ability to survive.  What we think we can survive is part of what drives it.  If we go solely from what we think we are capable of in our minds we would be selling ourselves short.  The tremendous capacity to survive is built into our mind, our body, our heart and our spirit.  God created us to live and live fully.  He therefore also gave us the tools needed to make that happen.  We will utilize what is at our best in the moment.  As a child, in order to survive the reality of sexual abuse I would escape in my mind.  Whatever we face as kids, sometimes escape physically is not possible so we do so with our minds.  It can be a very effective tool.  I am grateful for it.  Living in recovery as an adult woman however, I am driven by the desire to live and experience life as fully as possible.  This means the escape I choose today is more holistic. Escaping into my mind and leaving my body is not what I want to do today.  So I must utilize the tools for survival provided by my heart and my spirit which for me are often initiated by my body.  My heart grants me the courage to face it.  My spirit grants me the patience and the fortitude to face life.  When my heart and spirit are enrolled they utilize the capacity of my mind to walk through experiences I would have thought I needed to escape from to survive.  Over time I begin to see that today what I need escape from is my fixed thinking about how the experience is going to be. With these God-given tools working in concert together, escape means letting go of my version of reality and embracing God’s.

We look with admiration to the qualities of strength. We are drawn to the strong of heart, mind, and body.  God is interested in the strength of our spirit, where the spirit of love endures.  The funny thing is we think it comes from demonstrating strength and building on it.  I have found that the things that strengthen my spirit come from weakness.  Until I know and face my weakness, I cannot know what needs to be strengthened.  There is another option of course.  It could give up entirely, we all could.  Yet something about the way God created us has endowed us with courage to endure through our weaknesses.  The hope of light living inside us which God nurtures and strengthens never goes out.  It is the space from which to draw the needed strength and begin the work of having a full life in the spirit of love.  This world can tempt us to define ourselves by the things we are still striving to overcome or have failed at. God’s eyes are focused on the powerful strength waiting to be seen in the light of day.  When we have the courage to see our weakness as an avenue to awaken to the process of strengthening our spirit, we begin to know what God knows.  We are illuminated as to the truth of who we are which is someone who is not defined by the circumstances or the struggles of their life but by the courage to latch on to hope. When we get an opportunity to strengthen our spirit by facing our weaknesses we experience the power of love in us.

No one, as far as I can tell, makes it through this life unscathed.  We all  have things we are working on in the form of  weaknesses or experiences that threaten to beat us down.  There are areas where we are strong and areas where we are weak. Unlike the message of the world, God reminds us that areas of weakness do not make us less than.  Yes, they humble us and remind us we are not alone.  If I never faced my food addiction, my incest, or the day-to-day areas of my life where I think I am not measuring up, I would not know the strength that exists in my heart.  We do not need hide our areas of weakness in shame.  We are called by the hope and light of our hearts to claim them as the portals through which the strengthening power of love shows up for the very world that would look down up on us for being weak.

I find trees to be these amazing creatures of nature.  They are rooted underground so you cannot see without digging where they draw their strength and nutrients.  Trees come in so many varieties, shapes, colors, they change with the seasons, and they are constantly growing.  Trees get pulled and blown, deal with wind and extreme weather, and still they stand.  Still they stand.  They are like a sign post to the power of life. To the greatness that comes from not losing one’s grounding despite adversity.  I also know so many of the trees I come across have been there long before I saw them and will still be there long after I am gone from this planet.  Trees provide shade, comfort, structure, beauty, and nutrients to the environment. Even when they are cut down they have left their mark.  I think of the story, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  Even in the end when the tree had nothing left to give, it provided just the thing the man needed.  Its roots were still there below the surface and it gave its all to the life of the world and to the once boy who became a man.  God still believes in the light in our hearts even when we only see darkness.  God still knows the power of love that created every cell of our being when we doubt it.  God knows that the light of love is still inside of us and can never go out completely. It is still connected and rooted in God who keeps it alive.

We have the primary role in our lives.  We are here because we are meant to be here.  When we watch and actor in tv, film, or stage we have certain understandable expectations.  We expect to see them play the character they are taking on and all his or her facets.  We want to see the range of their humanness.  We want to know what they feel and where they have come from.  We are curious as to what has happened to shape their lives and their perspectives.  We would be caught off guard if we saw them being the character they are sharing a scene with.  Why would it be necessary to have two of the same role? The scene would not work.  Why then are we surprised when we live our lives trying to be other people or other people’s expectations of us and it doesn’t work?  In a film if all we wanted was for one character to explain the rest it would be a really long monologue. Even then if the actor does not know his or her lines, there is no show. Life is a dialogue and knowing our lines is not enough.  To live it fully we must be the words and the actions.  We are starring in the movie of our lives and the people with whom we interact want to know with whom they are playing.  My daily dates with God have taught me more about who I am, where I come from, where I am going, and what my purpose is than I thought they would.  A relationship with God involved connecting with ourselves as much as our concept of God.  God wants us to take on the starring role in our lives.  If he didn’t want us, he would have cast someone else.  If she thought there was someone else better suited to the role, he or she would have it.  It may not be easy to be the star but if the story revolves around the starring role, we need to be able to show up for it.  Each of us is the starring role in our own lives and when the plays intersect, how will it work if we decide to switch with others or do not know our lines?