dailydatewithgod

It is amazing what we can accomplish when we start with the smallest steps.  Children do not grow overnight.  There is a step by step process in our bodies that knows exactly what comes first and then it continues from there.  The same happens when we build buildings.  We start with a design, lay the foundation, put up the beams to provide the wall structure, and so on.  We cannot put up the beams without the foundation.  Not if we expect it to last.  Relationships are no different.  One does not go from being an acquaintance to being a best friend in one moment.  It starts with recognition and conversation which increases in-depth over time.  We are often in such a rush to move from beginning to end that we do not allow time for the process of growing, building, or cultivating relationship.  Within the allowance of the process is where the strength of connection are created.  I am fortunate to have a few girlfriends whom I have known for over 30 years.  They are the most precious women to me. Our friendship started in middle school, a typically wacky time when your friends can make or break your reality.  When I reflect on the formation of my relationship with each of those women, it is not the big moments we shared standing out in my mind.   It is the small goofy circumstances and interactions that remind me of how precious those relationships are. It is the times when we allowed each other to be a messes and took turns being the one to help pick up the pieces.   There was no way to know on any given day that it would create the experience that would end up meaning so much.  They are the moments when God was so present in the love and connection we shared because we allowed each other and the circumstances to just be. It is what I found myself thinking back years later when I attended their weddings or got the call to celebrate a new job.  It is what we rehash when we get together once a year for our reunion.  The allowance of  building our connection over time is the glue that keeps us desiring to continue to connect despite the obstacles.  God allows us the freedom to be exactly who we are when we and what we are.  God trusts in the process of a relationship that can grow over time if we allow room to just be.  It is what gets cultivated on our daily dates and what I look forward to most when I wake up.

It is clear to me that God’s understanding of love is different from mine.  God has this all-embracing acceptance of what is. God has the vision of our innocence and wholeness readily in her mind at all times.  God’s ideas and expressions of love are not hindered by human limitation and experiences. My daily dates with God have shown me that the same capacity dwells within our own hearts. Why would it not?  We were created by the very being that operates from this space of this understanding love. We were designed to be the messengers of love. He is constantly guiding us back to our hearts.  She is calling us home to the reality of who we are.  It begins by trusting God’s vision is possible.  In recovery I learned the concept of God as a power greater than myself.  No matter how much energy and intention I put into loving I still seem to pale in comparison to what God is capable of.  This alone defines God as something greater than me. I do not always see the wholeness and innocence of myself and others.  I am often limited in loving based on my limitations and experiences.  When I take the time to be present on our dates each day I have the opportunity to connect in my heart space to God’s capacity for love. I can trust it to be there because I have experienced it moving in and through me.  It happens most often when I get out-of-the-way.  It is as though admitting that I alone  cannot summon what is needed to bring love to the situation makes room for it.  In my admission I reach for the hand of God and trust it will guide me to my heart.  It may not present itself in the fashion or form I am expecting because that would limit it to my imagination.  Trusting little by little that no matter what I feel, it is there is what defines faith.

One of the ways I feel God communicates is through music.  We all know the feeling of being touched in our hearts by music.  There is something about how the rhythms and beats vibrate through our ears into the rest of our body.  As a dancer I am cognizant of the times I feel compelled to move because of a piece of music.  When musicians create they become the channels through which God can shine. The fact that our cells operate through vibrations speaks to the profound connection we feel with sound in general and specifically music. Yet like any modality it can be used for good or harm. Since we have a vast array of musical options, it begs the question of whether some is good and some is harmful.  The music industry has certainly faced this question over the years as different musical trends and styles have reached popularity. One could pose the same question when it comes to any part of creation or God, the Great Creator.  If God is alive in the creation process, and God is love, how can something that has been created draw us away from love?  It is a fundamental question of existence: Is God truly all-encompassing or is there God and then the opposite of God?  With an all-encompassing God there is room to be flawed.  There is room to grow into love.  It allows for the possibility of change.  God is not all-encompassing because God is the opposite of love or could even express the opposite of love but because God leaves no stone unturned in providing an opportunity for anything to be used as a portal back to love.  When we are all-encompassing of all of ourselves, we keep from wasting time trying to excise the less than desirable parts of ourselves and others from the picture.  God models an encompassing way of being because God always makes room for all of his children, no matter how far they have strayed.  She wants us to know that if we use what has been created to return to the truth of who we are, then there is room for all of it.  The fact of creation does not make something good or bad, it is in whether we use it to return to ourselves and God.

I was at a workshop once where we were asked to describe the volunteer on the stage based only on what we could see.  There was another group on the opposite side of the stage who were asked to do the same without the volunteer turning around.  Of course each side had different descriptions because they were viewing the person from different angles.  Even with the two angles we could not describe anything more than physical features of the person which is only one angle of how she might be described.  The point was to get us to realize that if we can only see someone or something from one angle we are missing the full picture.  We need other people to share with us the angle from which they are seeing things to get the full picture.  Essentially the two groups could not agree on the description because they were seeing two different people according to the angle of view. It is less about agreement and more about acknowledging that we are missing some perspectives because of the limited angles.  God encourages us to open up and see things from different angles.  This includes ideas, people, and even ourselves.  The full beauty of an experience or individual cannot be had from one angle. How many of us when we are asked to describe someone we are seeing walk all around them, lay on the floor and look up at them or get above them and look down?  If we only describe them from one angle it is not a full picture. And if we wanted to describe someone emotionally, mentally, tonally or otherwise we would need the angles of their heart, mind, and voice.  It takes courage to admit we often limit ourselves to the angle most readily available to us and fill in the blanks.  Once we admit it we can ask God to show us other angles of the person which may involve engaging with the person and with others to learn of the angles through which they describe the person.

There are all kinds of situations in our lives that wake us up to see with clear eyes the reality of our lives. They are usually the experiences provoking us to pay attention.  We can sometimes dismiss them and push them aside.  We can ignore them and hope they will go away.  Our lives are designed to be lived in full presence.  Our spirit comes alive and moves through us when we are awakened by the provoking of life.  We can look at it as a burden or a failure but then we lose the opportunity the provoking provides.  It is not about the content, it is the process. Whether it is an experience or person who is provoking us is not important.  What is important is the message of our soul that is calling for an awakening to live more fully through the provoking.  I know I pay attention more acutely when I am provoked by pain.  It is harder to push aside but in the end it is not about the pain itself, it is about facing what created the pain and walking away from it with my sovereignty intact.  What is provoking us may feel like it will break us, but ultimately it works towards God’s plan of returning us to an awareness of our wholeness.

We live essentially from one breath to the next but we perceive our lives in much larger chunks of time.  I suppose that is why time is relative.  They are days that seem to go on forever and ones that fly by.   If we open ourselves to focusing on each instance occurring in a period of time, we find ourselves living realities than we could have imagined.  Do you ever wonder why it is we breathe so often?  Why does our body move us to take a breath multiple times a minute?  Why does our heart beat so often each 60 seconds? Do we notice these instances of time like seconds or hours ticking by or do we measure them in something other than numbers?  God invites us to pay attention to the wisdom of our heart which changes it numbers of beats depending on what is happening.  What are the instances that speed up our heart and calm it down?  How are the instances of our heart calling us to measure our lives?  We do this intuitively even if we do not realize it.  When we reflect back on a time spent with those we love and care about, we do not measure the hours.  We think about the instances of connection when we laughed, shared a meal, embraced, or listened to one another because they are the language of our heart.  Those instances will long outlast the time in numbers it took for them to occur   When those who are dying look back at their lives, do they remember how many days they spent on vacation or the places and people with whom they spent the days? The instances of new experiences, time to breathe, and being with those we are close to us is how our hearts remember the time.

When we decide to be in the here and now we welcome what life presents to us.  We are ready and available although not always desiring to face what is there.  The beauty of being willing to be with what is presented is the opportunity to be with God.  The only place where God’s time and our time intersects is now.  Most meditation and spiritual practices are designed around helping us get to the now and the fortitude to stay with it.  Our minds want to wander into the past or go to the future.  It is easy to get yanked out of the present moment because it is constantly fluctuating.  In those fluctuations the mind starts to chatter and think.  When we are thinking we are no longer present with what is.  Being with what is presented means having the courage and the desire to be with our calling to receive love or bring love.  It may not look like love and we get stuck in the package, but all we are presented with is a call to be the love or receive the love.  We know it in our hearts and souls.  It is what makes the light within us shine brightly and connect with others.  The more practice we have in seeing what is presented as an opportunity to receive love or give love, the more we have the courage to stay with the present moment.

I used to think that if I was willing to take something under consideration it meant I was just buying time to convince myself of something I would have to do or take care of. It sounds ridiculous when I write out my thought process around it.  It stems from the idea that it is not okay to say what is true for me, especially if it does not agree with you, whomever you are. Thankfully along the way, I had mentors who demonstrated how to say variations of things like, “Thank you but that does not work for me”, or “I appreciate the opportunity, but it is not a good fit for me right now”,  or simply, “Thank you, no.”  Slowly learning how to define what works for me and being okay with it allowed me to consider all kinds of things.  No longer was it about me needing time to adjust myself to the request, idea, or experience.  Considering becomes a time for me to check in with myself in the quiet of my heart and determine if the request, idea, or perspective resonates with me and how God sees me.  I do not do this perfectly. I still find myself pushing back out of fear when being asked to consider something whether a request from a person or a new idea or perspective.  I get stuck in thinking I have to respond affirmatively or negatively in the moment.  Sometimes the situation calls for that, but when it doesn’t, I can pause and consider. One of the values of my daily prayer and meditation date with God is practice in sitting without doing anything. It is much of what happens when considering something.  It just sits in my mind and my heart until a clear response, if one is needed, shows up.  The power of being a person of my word when I say, “let me consider it and get back to you”, far outweighs the dopamine hit I get from being able to give someone an answer right away that is not genuine.

Life is designed to be lived.  We find ourselves in an ongoing movement that has no ending. Even when our lives appear to end, all those whom we have come into contact carry on with a part of us in them.  We often do not realize the kind of impact we have on each other.  It can be as simple as a kind or harsh word or gesture to impact the thinking or perception of another about themselves and life.  We underestimate how much we are designed for relationship and the possibilities we can create when we open ourselves to take responsibility for the impact we are creating. God wants to aid us in leaving an impact that shares ourselves as a presence of love in the world.  This does not mean we never do things wrong or act perfectly at all times.  Instead it is about intending to make conscious impact for ourselves and others.  We all know deep down  we respond better when we are impacted by love.  We know fear can motivate us to act but it has a residual effect that leads to more fear and less willingness to trust in the process of life.  When we act in ways that are the opposite of love it typically stems from some kind of fear, real or imagined.  It is well-meaning but does not lead us into our hearts.  We spend our time and energy guarding our hearts instead of extending them. God knows we are capable of impacting the world ten times over with the love we have present in our hearts. So she invites us to get to know our own hearts as he does and become good friends with it. My daily dates have opened up my heart with a desire to make the impact of love on the world a little bit stronger because I am getting to know who I am as God sees me one day at a time.

God is about possibilities.  He wants us to open our eyes to all our options.  It is why we are prompted to stop, breathe, and connect with our heart every time we inhale and exhale.  It is our body’s reminder to come back to center.  In order for her to share with us the vast array of possibilities, we need to expand the range beyond our eyes.  Looking through the lens of our hearts brings us into connect with the sight of God.  She can share with us the beginnings of things we could not imagine in our minds.  He wants us to play in a world of creation which means moving outside the range to which we are accustomed.  We experience the moments of possible expansion when we are seemingly struck from outside forces and our hearts wake up.  We think we know it when we see it with our eyes but it is when our eyes are in alignment with the awakening of our hearts we can identify the thing or experience that seemed to generate the expansion of our range.  It only seems as though it is the outside element because it caused us to wake up, but it was always there for us. It is part of our design that this happens in relationship with others.  We are on this journey of life together and we need each other to awaken our hearts.  In our interaction with others we wake up and pay attention to the expansion of the range of vision God is guiding us to through the interchange with others.