dailydatewithgod

All That Is . . . is Right NOW!  We live in a world that measures the end goal.  The degree, the ceremony, the big purchase, the award, the medal, the performance, etc.  Those things are important of course, but they are in essence  a celebration and recognition of the process that got one to that place. The degree would not be without the course hours, study time, projects, or exams.  The big purchase would not be happening if one had not put away money little by little so they could afford that item.  The medal came because the athlete got up every day and trained, whether they felt like it or not. The wedding is happening because the couple went on date after date and decided to open each others hearts to one another a little more each day.  The process, the road to the destination is where we show up.  It is where we see our character.  It is in the day-to-day on the road to wherever it is we want to get to that we have the chance to show ourselves who we are.  It is the process of the choice one day at a time to keep going.  It is in the decision that the path is where we want to be. Even if we don’t make it to the end goal, the choice to be on the path today is worth it.  God is RIGHT NOW! Wherever we are in our process of life God is with us.  The world may wait to recognize or congratulate me when I cross the finish line, get the degree, buy the thing,  or celebrate the wedding.  God is with me at every work out, each time I research an article, every penny I set aside, and each date I go on.  My prayer for us today is that we be with ourselves in the process and take on God’s way by not waiting to acknowledge our process until its destination. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The universe we exist in is constantly expanding and growing.  If we are truly a part of that system (which would make sense since we were created by the same entity) it means that we are constantly growing.  Our energies are ready to expand, grow, and to connect with others and All That Is.  We also experience this on a basic physical level when we want to reach out and connect with our fellow human beings.  We connect physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  Sometimes we clash when we connect because we are all learning and growing at different rates.  When I start my day on my dates with God I am reminded of the gentleness, patience and joy of growing and learning in Love.  God welcomes me with open arms and is excited that I have decided to take him up on his offer to continue to grow in love today. God reminds me that he is with me through all my lessons today, no matter what.  I need that reassurance.  I need that connection to something greater than me for the times when the lessons seem greater than me.  My prayer for us today is that when we find ourselves facing a lesson that seems greater than us we are able to remember that we are already connected to something greater than us.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is timeless, spaceless, and dimensionless.  The world acts as though it is running out of time and space. We run around trying to save time.  Who said time needed saving?  I think we are the ones who need saving.  Saving from our thinking that we need to out do God.  If we have the right watch or create the perfect schedule or start far enough in advance we think that we can save ourselves from disaster.  Who said that things being on-time or perfectly scheduled prevents disaster?  What if disaster is exactly what needs to happen?  I have noticed that most spiritual writers and thinkers speak of God’s time.  They share their stories of trusting in the Great Plan of Spirit and the timing being just as it should.  Could it be that everything is going according to schedule all the time we just have the wrong schedule?  Nah, we think God has the wrong schedule.  Poor God, he was just misinformed, right? LOL!  As I grow in my relationship with God, I learn to see the lag time or chaotic elements that throw my schedule off as a reminder that God is in charge.  In that moment I can choose to trust that God is still with me no matter what happens or God is not.  This has been a process of shifting from feeling like things happen to me and welcome the idea that things happen for me.  What is happening, what is now, is God.  God is never not present.  It may take me a while to see the presence of God in an event or experience, but God never leaves.  God has all the time in the world to be fully present in the moment.  God waits for us forever and God is with us right now.  God never runs out of time.  God created time and it works according to plan. My prayer for us today is that we embrace things that are off in our timing as God’s way of reminding us that we just need to get with God’s schedule.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

Two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, two hands-do you think God is trying to tell us something?  The things that we use to receive with are in the twos.  Eyes through which to see what is physically happening, ears with which to hear it, nostrils to taken in the scent and taste and hands with which to grasp.  Yet none of this has any meaning until we make the connection in our minds and our hearts. Once the perception hits the meaning making machine (our minds) which looks to place it in a familiar file, things just are.  What if we were to pause first with our hearts and just observe what we are taking in?  What if we were present to the energy of the reception before we put a label on it?  The meaning we create would then be subject to the influence of our heart.  Maybe this already happens but we are so quick to listen to the voice that speaks up so hastily in our minds that we miss it.  If God designed us to live from our hearts then it is within our power to cultivate the listening of the beats of energy that resonate within us before forming an opinion of what we are perceiving. If we place greater value on our minds’ perspective versus our hearts’, we are going to wait for its verdict and pass over the one that is sensitive to the energy within all things perceived. I think as children our hearts are open and full, ready to take in what is being offered but we get hurt and shut it down to protect it. Then we place priority of the mind over the heart.  This is what happened to me.  It is part of the human experience.  This experience calls us to live out our mission to continue to search for the One who designed the heart and longs for us to draw closer to love with each new day.   Our hearts and minds do not work in opposition, they are meant, like all our systems to work cohesively.  If we are open to cultivating the practice of pause and observance, we can find room for them both.  We can create the balance of living from a place of receiving and giving love while knowing that we are taken care because Our Creator who designed us this way is still in charge. Nothing that happens to us can undo what God has done.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to explore the power of observation as a means to reconnect the relationship between our hearts and our minds.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We are wired for connection.  It is in the design. The Great Creator built within us the desire and the joy of connection.  Connection with others, connection with ourselves and connection with All That Is.  We can pride ourselves on our self-sufficiency and independence.  We can list the things in our lives that we have accomplished all on our own.  But as we look closer at the elements of self-sufficiency and independence we notice that it all comes from some kind of connection.  Even a hermit must acknowledge that he or she was created out of the connection between a man and a woman.  The part I am certain gives God a great deal of laughs are the lengths we go to at times to avoid it or deny it.  I know the peace that comes from connecting to my own spirit.  I know the comfort that comes from reaching and grasping the hand of a trusted friend.  I know the wonder that comes from connecting each day with God in sometimes the most unexpected ways.  Yet, I have been known to run from any and all of it out of fear or discomfort.  I fear losing my individuality, my sense of who “I” am, and needing others. I am uncomfortable in the vulnerable experiences of being and attempting to connect and waiting.  I have learned in the last decade or so the profound power of letting people in.  For a girl who made a decision early on that she was on her own, this has been a real source of emotional and spiritual growth for me.  It has meant letting go of my meanings of independence, dependence, and connection by bringing them to God and asking, what does this look like from your point of view?  How can I connect wholly with the sense of connection that lives in my heart? Like all things it is a day by day or even moment to moment situation.  I needn’t know exactly how to do it, but precede it by my willingness to be in the space of connection with earnestness.  As a grown woman looking to let go of the stories created when I was young, I know that where my intention are my actions follow.  My prayer for us today is when we have moments of connection to others, ourselves, and or God we sit and be with it for a moment, allowing it to permeate us through and through.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

There is no place where God is not.  In the in-between spaces it looks like there is nothing but nothing is the very thing that is there. Even scientists are discovering things that exist in what was previously believed to be “empty space”. The physical world that we inhabit measures everything by the end result. Our society asks, what is the outcome, the degree, the accolade, the trophy, the recognition, or goal achieved?  This creates an intolerance and lack of value for the times in between when we are in the process.  Every achievement happens in stages, day by day, step by step, decision by decision.  The process of working towards a goal or preparing for an event is the story of our life. It is the journey, not the destination.  Who we are being is measured on the path to the end. On the path, everything has value in God’s eyes.  Every step, every moment, every decision is an opportunity to be present in the moment.  Even in the quiet times when it seems like nothing is happening.  Things are never what they seem.  God encourages us to pause and to rest on the journey because in theory we are here for the experience of life.  Life is more than just the main event or the end result.  In the same way that we are more than just our physical bodies, our being has value in the in-between times.  It is in the quietude that we can be taken care of, nurtured, rested, and filled with the love that we need to take us on our next step of the journey.  My prayer for us today is that we seize the moments of “nothing” happening and ask God to help us recognize the presence of love in those moments.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

When all else fades away, God remains.  In a world where things are constantly changing it is hard to image that there is a constancy in God that exists, especially when we consider that the sureness of God that exists does not take the form of permanence that we come to think of as permanent.  In other words, we come to and understanding of security as those that take specific shape and physical form. As we mature we realize that even those things change and the one that does not isn’t a physical reality.  If we think about it too much it can be maddening which is why it is good that the knowing of security in God resides in our hearts and spirits.  God invites us to spend time in the space of our hearts so that we might begin to know the realm of the spirit deep within us.  As we do that we have less and less attachment to the things of the world upon which we have relied for our security and identity.  We are not as threatened when they change or fall away because we are reunited with the security of God in our soul.  When God and I have our date time, my eyes are opened to a reality far more secure that the job that I have, the money in the bank, the roof over my head, or the loved ones in my life.  So when those things fall away or change, and they will, I do not lose my grounding.  My security is not shaken.  The process of stepping away from dependence solely on the physical securities offered by this world and relying on the security of God is step by step, day by day, with lots of bumps and curves. It is a continual call to love from the heart and expand my learning so that I might share that love with others.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to looking within ourselves to find the security of God that is at the core of who we are and cling to it from our hearts.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The Energy of God that created every part of you is present with you in this moment.  At no time can you be separate from that which formed you and designed you.  Your vital energy does not go away.  No matter how much circumstance and story you layer on top of your energetic essence.  In the end it is at your core that it will be found.  God calls us to draw inward and connect with our deepest selves because that is where God will be found.  When we connect with our core of spirit the Great Spirit is revealed to us.  We see that all the layers we have placed on top of it are not the truth of who we are.  No matter what happens in our lives, no matter what we have endured, no matter the stories of what we think we are supposed to be matter to who we truly are.  lt is easy for me to buy into that I am only what is on the surface and hold all my value there.  We live in a world that is constantly reminding us and tending to our outer appearance.  But our outer appearance is only a reflection of what is going on inside of us.  The more I tend to the core of my spirit, the more my outer self shines with genuine light and love.  If these dates have taught me anything, it is that.  The quiet time that I set aside for me and God first thing, connects me to my own vitality which drives the energy and fulfillment of my life.  My prayer for us today is that we trust God enough to be willing to tend to the core of who we are by going below the layers we have created and see the vitality that exists within us. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Life’s beauty is painted by the many variables we experience.  The flow and dance of life is splattered with the unexpected experiences that lighten our spirit and our hearts and engage us in the moment.  This is the core of who we are.  It is challenging for our ego’s physical reality because that is not something we can “rely” on. There is no certainty in variability or unexpected.  We look to patterns and routines to tell us that we are okay because they feed into the ability to not be conscious.  The ego mind much prefers not to be present because it is then aware that it is not all that is. In the present moment we are aware of the Divine Consciousness of which we are a part and we remember that we do not have to rely on just our ego.  We can resolve to be in the present more and more if we are willing to rely a little bit less on the known and a little bit more on the unknown to our ego.  The irony in all of this is our spirit knows this Presence and is grateful to rely on it. For me I can do this in little steps day by day by taking a random occurrence or incident and choosing credence in my spirit that connects me to All That Is.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to choose credence in God in an innocuous experience and notice the reaction of our spirit.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God takes the time.  Of course, God makes time.  It is hard to imagine being in a space where time is irrelevant.  We live in such a timed world.  There are clocks everywhere. We are measured by how much time it takes us to get things done, arrive somewhere, respond to someone, finish school, get a job, get married, own a house and on and on.  Most of our relationship with time has to do with results.  If we are not dependent upon results, how much time something takes does not matter.  Perhaps this is why God is about the process because God is not measuring what gets done, but what is being done, more specifically who we are being while we are on this travel experience of life.  We are called to be the message of love. When I look back on a day, sometimes I focus on how much time things took, but mostly I remember what I was thinking about or feeling.  Who I was being while I was waiting tells me more about the quality of my life than the amount of time. I work around and train others on computer systems, we are all around them these days.  How frustrated do we get when the page doesn’t load quick enough or we haven’t gotten an email response back?  Who are we being when we are frustrated or waiting?  Who are we being when things aren’t going the way or the speed we want them to?  Where else is it exactly that we are supposed to be at that moment that we need it to happen so quickly?  Maybe some slowness is not a bad thing.  Maybe in the slowness we can actually be present to where we are, who we are with, what we are feelings and just be for a moment.  Often that is too uncomfortable so we would rather the rush of moving to the next thing.  And when we can’t get that rush, we complain and get all dramatic about it not happening.  I am convinced that God finds me quite amusing just watching me run around in such a hurry sometimes. If God were a southern woman he would say, “Sweet Child, why are you in such a hurry?  Just come sit out on the veranda with me darlin’ and let’s sip some lemonade and take in the sun before it goes down.”  My prayer for us today is that we be open to the possibility that whatever is moving slowly in our lives is God’s invitation to sit down on the veranda and sip some lemonade.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen