dailydatewithgod

God has created this grand design of a world and there is so much in it for us to grasp, the learn, to grown and to be touched by.  We are present and available things seen and unseen.  So much is happening all the time that our brain does much of the processing and filtering of information that is coming in all on its own.  It does this based on basic genetic programming as well as learning programming.  One of the greatest tools that we can develop is conscious awareness.  What we focus on expands.  If we want to be able to see more of things we like we need to consciously choose to focus on them.  We have to first become aware of them.  Then we can focus.  It has been said that awareness is the first step.  If we are not aware we cannot choose or make any decisions.  Sometimes I have berated myself for not knowing or being aware but I have learned to trust that I become aware of things exactly as I need to.  I trust that God will reveal to me the things that I need to be aware of in the perfect place and time.  My job is to choose to stay in awareness and not go back to sleep.  My prayer for us today is that we notice what we are aware of and what we are not.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Within your heart there exists this chamber where only one dwells.  This chamber is the sacred space that began your existence.  It is the same space that exists in every living thing.  It is the same experience that transcends the physical, emotional, and mental energy that we call life.  It is God.  The Infinite Intelligence of the Universe is present in all that is created.  When we slow down long enough and get quiet past the noise of our minds we find a stillness in our breath and in our hearts.  The stillness that almost feels like a void of nothing at first, lies the connection to the Great I AM that our hearts and spirits long to be connected with at all times.  God created us out of love. God created us with love.  God created us to be love for the world.  This experience in the quiet is of true love. Mystics speak of it, theologians write about it, indigenous people dance to celebrate it.  It is as close as our breath and as far away from us as our minds tell us it is.  This essence calls to us in the quiet spaces and times with sometimes the quietest of voices that we cannot hear it over the clamoring of the world.  It is an invitation to BE with LOVE.  It took me a long time to be willing to sit still long enough to be reconnected with God.  Over time that willingness to do whatever it took to strengthen that connection is what gave me the courage to show up for my dates with God each morning whether I wanted to or not, tired or not, loud head or quiet head.  I simply said, Here I AM God, let it be enough that I AM Here with You.  Each day it is enough. It is enough because when I AM is not enough God is always enough for the both of us.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing (whether we want to or not) to be with God as we understand God and let that willingness expressed in action be enough.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

One Grand Design, born of love of which we are an integral part is here to stay.  One Grand Design, lived in love of which we can choose to live our lives is open to us. One Grand Design breathed to life by love of which we have the opportunity to play a part.  God is not a god of mistakes. God does not miss the mark.  God is the Grand Designer of Love.  God knew what he was doing when we came into physical existence.  There is something about each of us that allows us to convey an understanding of God to the world.  This is our soul’s mission.  This is our purpose.  We can run from it, we can try to hide from it.  We can squash it or bury it down.  This creates dis-ease because we can never really run or hide from ourselves. It is not always easy for me to be open to God’s vision of my possibilities in this life.  Sometimes I falsely think that it is “safer” to stick with what I already know (meaning my known thinking).  I do this because I falsely think that it all has to change in one big action.  I forget that God works through the little things in life.  Most importantly, I forget that God does not call me to open my heart and my mind on my own. God stands with me, holds my hand and whispers words of confidence and love in my ear. God opens my eyes to a beautiful sunset, a blooming flower, and the smile of a friend.  God reminds me that these simple and subtle signs of God’s presence are the very same things that will be with me as I step into my true self and shed the protective coating of familiarity.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to the subtle ways that God encourages us to carry out our mission.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

All of creation has a movement and a rhythm of life.  We are part of the grand rhythm.  Our Creator wants us to experience being in the flow of life.  To know deep down what it is like to let go and be.  For me this means slowing down and getting quiet.  It means letting go of my agenda  at least for a little while and experiencing being a part of the process.  It means being open to the possibilities that I cannot fathom.  It looks like pausing.  It looks like taking a breath.  It looks like observing my thoughts and not just going with them.  It looks like smiling because there is a sense of peace.  There was a long time in my life when this was not possible because the God I had in my life was a mish-mash of misconstrued ideas of a god that was going to drop the other shoe.  I could not take in the good for fear that it wouldn’t last.  I could not be in the moment because I had to be on guard for what was around the corner. I was stuck in old thinking that life was going to keep repeating itself over and over.  When I got to a safe enough place and space in my life I was able to open up this thinking and let it go. It got dark and messy before I reached this point, but I have no shame in that.  I believe that I am exactly where I need to be and everything that brought me here happened just as it needed to.  I can now spend more of my time and space being a part of the Grand Motion and letting go of the need to conduct the motion myself.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to pausing and seeing what it is like to be in the Grand Motion for five minutes.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Glad tidings rang throughout heaven the moment that you were born on this earth. All of Heaven got excited and the angel’s trumpets rang hymns of joy because God had done it yet again.  God made manifest more love in the world by placing you here.  God gave the angels more messengers to work with. God was being who God is– a giver of love.  People here on earth may or may not have been as excited but just because one is not present to the Eternal Enjoyment doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.  This is what life is about–getting in touch with, remembering, the joy of which you were born.  No matter what happens in our lives on this physical planet, those angels never stopped ringing their trumpets for you.  God never stopped being the love that created you and your soul/spirit always is connected to that knowing.  This is why when we have those moments of joy and sit with them just long enough, our whole body is present to it and our spirit rejoices for the remembering.  For me, just going along with the idea that someone somewhere is so excited that I am in existence is very helpful.  On days when it doesn’t seem worth it to go on any further, or I am in the middle of letting go of something that I have layered on top of my heart and can’t see the possibility of freedom, I need to know that there is more to being that just what I can see with my own eyes.  My prayer for us today is that when we find ourselves in a moment of joy even in the smallest thing (a smile, a sunset, a cool breeze, a warm hug, a friendly text hello), we pause and breathe it in so that we can connect to that same joy of our true being and let it grow a little stronger in our hearts.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is known to us in our hearts.  God is known to us in our minds.  God is known to us in our every cell. We are privileged to live in a time where so much is known.  We have scientists and scholars who can explain the mysteries of life. There is so much to learn and comprehend about our experience. We spend years in schooling to garner this knowledge.  We obtain pieces of paper that tell the world how much time we have spent with our head absorbing the known ideas of others.  We go to people of knowledge and seek their advice on things.  These are all good things, but they have their limits.  Especially when we make ourselves wrong for not knowing.  The purpose of knowledge is not to place ourselves above or below others. The purpose of knowledge is growth.  For me some of the most growing experiences I have ever had were those in which I didn’t know anything of what I was getting into.  If I am unfamiliar with something I am more present.  If there is an unknown variable my senses are heightened.  If this brings with it fear, then I am turning and reaching for the hand of God (my true known) to walk through the door with me.  We bank our lives on familiarity and take things for granted.  When we open ourselves up to the unfamiliar we can be fully present and in gratitude for the opportunity to grow that exists in that moment.  My prayer for us today is that we measure our day by how many unfamiliar moments we can experience and see our own growth in love.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God created this world we live in, this universe of which we are an integral part with great love, great mercy, great kindness, great being.  God created it that way because God’s creation is an extension of himself/herself.  God does not create out of lack or confusion.  God creates because it is what Love is.  Love is about creating, being, sharing, and expanding.  God created everything that you are from this same space.  Just because you don’t feel majestic and kind, merciful and being in the moment does not mean you were created differently.  It just means you are disconnected from it at the moment.  We take on these identities of the world and they get layered on top of our hearts.  We wear them long enough and believe they are all that we are.  This is why it is so threatening to even think of letting them go.  To slow down long enough to listen to our hearts underneath all those layers.  When we have the courage to sit quietly with just ourselves we come face to face with the layers that we have taken on.  This can be alarming at first which is why we often run from it.  Part of our mission on this planet is to see those facades for their illusion of reality and embrace who we are at our core.  We think that if we slow down we will not be enough because we are not “doing” enough.  But when we stop, get quiet and spend time with our self, we are being.  God wants us to get to know the self that God created.  To do that we need to slow down long enough and just be.  My prayer for us today is that we take on the challenge of having moments of being instead of doing and see what it is about us that God is so crazy in love with.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God alone is our certainty! We have many things in our lives that we count on, but often without warning they slip away–people, ideas, structures, agreements, etc.  We often find ourselves devastated when they do because we rely on them as never-changing.  But the truth is that everything changes. The only thing that doesn’t change is God.  God is Love.  Love is constant.  Love is present.  As St. Paul says, “Love endures all things.”  When we experience the loss of the things that we thought were a certainty, we are given a gift. The gift is to come to terms with the spiritual truth that God is All That Is.  If we are connected with that, the things that come and go become the flow of life.  Our ego/physical self is the one that attaches to the “things” of this world.  We are in this world but not of this world.  I have yet to see a dying person be able to take anything with them when they pass–not even their physical body.  All we have is what is within us-our minds and our spirits.  My encouragement when I notice that things are “falling apart” around me and life seems uncertain, is the sense that I am being drawn to rely on the only certain thing which is present on our date every morning and throughout the day with each breath.  My prayer for us today is that we choose not to fear when we realize an uncertainty and instead embrace it as an invitation to draw closer to the Certain One.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

God is the essence of perfection!  By default then, everything that God creates is perfection.  God cannot be less than who God is.  The world’s interpretation is often something that works on automatic pilot-no being required.  God’s idea of existing is being, breathing, moving, flowing, learning, and growing.  There is no one way to be or feel or be present, there is only the opportunity to do so.  The notion that we are not perfect comes from the world’s view of results only.  God is about the process and the being.  We cannot undo the true essence of our being which comes from God which is perfect.  Are there times when we are not aligned with our highest good or our truest self?  Of course, everyone has “off” moments or times when we act from our ego instead of our heart.  This does not change who we are at our core.  God is a power greater than ourselves. Nothing we say or do can change God.  God help me to see me as you see me.  God help me to remember the love from which I was created and be from that space instead of something less than that.  These are the prayers that I use to bring myself back when I forget to be from who I am at the core. We are no less created from a God of love because we forgot it. My prayer for us today is that we spend less time focusing on what the world’s view of perfection is and just be the perfection that we are by being with our Creator.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Reality is one of the most beautiful gifts that we can participate in.  Life seems to be a continual lesson of either accepting reality or not.  For a long time from the victim perspective I could not accept reality because it seemed as though one bad thing would happen after another.  I could not accept reality because there was so much I wanted to change about me and my circumstances and felt powerless to do so.  I was powerless because I was relying on my power alone.  It is with God that I am able to make changes to long-standing thoughts and behaviors.  It is with the power of All That Is that I am able to accept reality and embrace its gifts, no matter the packages they come in.  When I am in acceptance there is the gift of surrender.  Surrender as in going to the winning side–the side that accepts that when I am fighting reality I am not doing anything other than wanting to stay in fantasy.  Sometimes I cannot accept what is happening right here, right now.  So, I am honest with God: This sucks, show me how to see this.  Just so you know I don’t like this but I am willing to let go of my idea of how it should be and be open to how I might grow from this.  Or my favorite: I cannot accept this as it is right now, but I can accept that I don’t accept it.  This allows me the space to be authentic and open to what is possible.  Then I am truly in the reality of my heart, mind and spirit.  The grace this gives me is the willingness to not abandon myself into some fantasy.  Instead I am choosing to live life on life’s terms and see things as God sees them, not just as I see them.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to be honest with ourselves and with God about our level of acceptance in the moment and give ourselves the gift of not trying to fight reality.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen