dailydatewithgod

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

In the realm of the spirit everything is heard, acknowledged, and noticed.  In God’s world nothing absolutely nothing goes unnoticed.  It is hard to imagine such an experience.  We inhabit a limited physical experience where we filter out a great deal.  In order to rely on our mind’s we find it necessary to exclude certain awareness.  This is a practice required for survival.  This is a sacred practice as it preserves our lives and our existence in the physical sense.  The spiritual reality is that we are a channel, a venue, and portal for spirit.  The bodies and things that we claim as solid are not as solid as we rely on them to be.  Everything is energy and everything is constantly changing.  Scientists each day are discovering more and more how what we understand to be a solid experience even has fluctuations.  To be present to everything would be to be God.  It would break the barriers of our capacity in this human form, but slowly we can begin to attune ourselves to that which is more than just what can be grasped at physically.  You notice it when there is a lightness in the air as you come across a friendly face.  You sense it when there is danger.  You feel it in the wind and the whispering of the willows.  It is written about in music and poetry, drawn in paintings, danced in ballet shoes, felt in warm hugs, seen in smiles, and echoed in sacred temples and churches. It is all the presence of spirit all around us.  The key is that this same experience is within us.  It does not just exist out there.  We do not need to go somewhere, see someone, or be something different.  God calls us to go within and listen.  Listen to our hearts.  Be open to how we are channeling the spirit of love.  This morning as my day quickly derailed into a bunch of mishaps I could hear God saying listen.  “Where are you rushing to?  What or whose expectation are you trying to meet?  Be with me.”  I danced in and out of that and am at this moment still grappling with fully surrendering.  I recognized as it started (after I expressed not so nicely to God that what was happening was not what I wanted!–picture a child stomping her feet), that this was an opportunity that I was being given to pay attention and listen.  As I was eating breakfast I noticed and listened to the birds singing outside my window.  I wondered how long it had been since I listened to the beautiful melody that for all I know was God’s way of singing to me “good morning my daughter.”  That was a moment where I danced in.  Then I got off the floor again when I was driving (I don’t recommend this as it makes traffic that much more unbearable).  🙂 Maybe this whole day will be me off and on the dance floor but I hope that I am willing to at least keep listening even when I step off the floor.  I have no words of wisdom, but my prayer for us today is in those in between moments, we listen to hear God say, “Be with Me.”  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

“In the beginning was the word and the word was God.”–Gospel of John.  For centuries scholars and lay people have spent hours upon hours studying what is believed to be the Word of God.  They have translated, analyzed, interpreted, misinterpreted, and written their own words of explanation and meaning.  Our lives are evidences in our action but they begin with our thinking.  In order to express our thinking we attach words and say them out loud.  Then to add energy we attach a tone of voice, volume and intention which creates the energy of expression–the bringing of life to the words. There are words that build us up and words that tear us down.  Florence Scovel-Shinn says our word is our wand.  Words carry power because we give them meaning.  Meaning creates emotion.  Energy in motion is what moves us.  I learned early on that the words that I use set the course of my destiny.  But I had to learn the hard way that if I kept using words to tear myself down I was going to view myself as in pieces.  My wholeness began to be restored when I recognized with my words the power of choosing them wisely and for building.  When we build ourselves up with our words (our self-talk) then we are capable of doing the same with others.  My prayer for us today is that we notice how we speak to ourselves both in our heads and out loud and ask God if this is how God speaks to us.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God created a magnificent and abundant universe.  We are included in that creation. Therefore by definition we are magnificent and abundant. Because we live in a limited physical world and forget our origins it is easy to buy into the notion that we are limited. God wants nothing more than for us to remember Our Creator, remember our origins, remember the love that we are.  Life is designed to bring us to those awakenings where we remember.  However when we are in the dream of the physical experience and believe we are only that which we can touch, see and hear, we end up being frustrated by anything that is outside of that.  We see the wake up call as a disruption.  These disruptions, however, at the very least are a “gift” because they call us to be “present” in the moment.  As I walk this daily path on these dates with God, I am gently invited to take on a new perspective of these so-called disruptions.  I am invited to see them as gifts of awareness that lead to paths of remembrance.  My prayer for us today is that we embrace the disruptions and ask God to help us see them for the gifts that they are.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Clarity and truth are two essential elements of Spirit.  God’s way is that of clarity and truth. God has a singular vision = LOVE. The vision then perpetuate everything that is.  The vision of love fulfilled.  The vision of love expressed.  The vision of love shared.  The vision of love healing.  The vision of love breaking down false barriers.  The vision of love engendering compassion.  The vision of love triumphant over all.  This vision is part of who we are as well.  Our Creator designed us to be the fulfillment of The Great Vision.  Our destiny is love and that is why in the end it always wins.  We can resist it.  We can pretend it is not part of who we are and act in a contrary manner, but in the end we cannot help but be touched by it, recognize it, and on some level be with it.  There have been dark times in my life when I felt nothing close to love and only knew the opposite.  Times when I felt abandoned by God and saw no hope.  Yet something within me would not let me give up.  I was connected to this vision of God but I didn’t know it. It was the little light in my heart the kept burning if only as an ember.  Bill W, founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, wrote “It is always darkest before the dawn.”  Have you noticed that the dawn always comes?  Night and day.  Death and Resurrection.  Breathing in and out.  It is the flow of life.  I can and have latched on to the current moment’s reality of darkness as though it was the only thing that existed, but I was never right.  Eventually it changed.  More importantly it showed me that my thinking is limited and I cannot rely solely on it to guide the vision of my life.  These days when I find myself troubled, uncertain, lacking clarity or feeling lost, I hear the voice of God remind me Keep your eyes on Me Colleen.  I may not know what love looks like in that situation but I can focus my vision on God (sometimes it is the face of Jesus, other times a bright light, and others a sacred chamber that I envision in my heart).  Then all that is not God will eventually fall away and love is revealed.  My prayer for us today that we have the willingness to let go of our limited version for the vision of God which will lead us to love. Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is God!  God never tries to be something other than the Great Creator, Infinite Intelligence, Designer of Love (or any other name we have for God.) God embodies, lives, emanates, breathes, exists and presences as the Great I AM because it does not make any sense to be something other than what God is.  When we approach God and engage in a relationship with God we can be guaranteed that we will experience nothing more and nothing less than All That Is.  We will encounter the Infinite, the Transcendent, the Wise, the Love in full force.  When we say yes to life, to a new breath, to being present in this moment we have the opportunity to be aligned with God.  God is all about now.  God is all about Love.  God is all about us being who we truly are because God wants that freedom for us.  I get caught up in what I think the world wants for me or of me and I get lost.  Mostly I get lost because it is constantly changing.  Depending on which person or idea I look to the expectation will be different. God has no expectation.  God simply provides the opportunity to step into our wholeness.  The opportunity to remember who we are and where we come from.  The opportunity to be the love of which we were created. The opportunity to step within ourselves and connect with the Great I AM.  There is great peace and ease in taking God up on this opportunity and I am grateful for the times that I do.  In a world that is finite, finicky, and full of expectations there is little peace.  My prayer for us today is that when we find ourselves caught up in what the world or our ego wants of us and are experience stress that we have the courage to pause, breathe, and reach for the opportunity God holds in the palm of his heart.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

All is equal in the eyes of God.  God does not create one thing and make it more important than the next.  The roles that each creation plays is different but one not more valuable than the other.  The world interprets fairness as sameness.  The spirit world interprets fairness as everyone’s contribution is equally valuable.  I get stuck in thinking that if I don’t have the same or access to the same it is not fair.  I then determine that you must be considered more valuable than me because you have something that I don’t and my mind interprets that to mean it is in short supply.  Then I have to fight to get what I want which I have interpreted as a need and we are off to the races. To restore my thinking I turn to God and ask what is fair here?  How do you see the equal importance of value in this situation?  Show me the worth of my role in this situation even though it is not valued equally by the world.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to seeing fairness as value not sameness.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is All That Is and therefore God is All Intelligent.  When we look at the intricate design and systems of life it is hard not to be fascinated by the power and intelligence behind it all.  Sometimes I find it intimidating, but then I remember that it is not my job to know how or why God works, only that God works.  We are a part of this Great Intelligence.  It is more than smarts, it is more than an ego label of intelligence that wins us diplomas and acknowledgment and prestigious awards.  It is about being aligned with the flow of life.  It is about playing a role that is intricate and necessary to all of life.  Being intelligent means being our fullest selves.  It means embracing that we are important to this chapter of our lives. We cannot possibly know the importance of the role that we are called to play.  If we align ourselves with God we are led moment by moment.  God doesn’t sit us down and lay it all out for us.  We have a choice at each juncture of each breath which way to go.  I find God’s ways more intelligent than mine.  On days when I am connected and in sync those ways are the same.  On days or moments when I am caught up in my ego or wanting it my way, my intelligence is hindered.  That is when I grabbed God’s hand and say Remind me how to use my intelligence here.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to noticing when we are running solely on our intelligence versus being connected to the Great Intelligence.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen

We are the greatest gift to God!  God has given us all of himself so that we may experience the fullness of life with each experience and each time we say yes, God smiles.  God wants us to know deep down from which we come.  God wants us to connect with our true essence of love.  It is hard to imagine that God would want anything less than the fullness of life for us because God is not about less than.  One of the sweetest gifts we get in this life is the gift of laughter.  It may seem like a simple thing but when we realize that it connects to our breath, jump starts our heart, connects us with others, and transcends time and language we are able to see the profound gift of connection that it brings.  It was discovered through a scientific study that what generates laughter is not clever jokes or funny situations but laughter from others.  It becomes a communal experience.  We are drawn to it when we hear others laugh as though our hearts and minds know there is something there for us.  One of the greatest spiritual experiences for me over and over is when I remember to laugh at myself.  In a healthy acknowledgment that reminds me to not take myself so seriously, my heart is lightened and I remember who is in charge and that God always wins.  My prayer for us today is that we seek out laughter and attempt to contribute to our life and the lives of others through its expression.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Our capacity to love is beyond our understanding!  It makes no logical sense why we are able to love, what it is to love with our whole being or how it is that in moments that we think we are not capable of loving it flows out of us.  God is Love.  We are created by love and for love.  When we share a kindness with another human being–whether it be a helping hand, a smile, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, or a refrain of a nasty word we are being the love that is our essence.  There is the expression, “Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty.”  The message is clear: taking action whether we feel it or not, whether it makes sense or not, aligns us with ourselves.  The senseless beauty is that it doesn’t have to make sense at all.  Being kind and extending kindness to others always makes sense to our spirits.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to acting in kindness as is true for each given situation, not necessarily what makes sense.  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen