dailydatewithgod

There is so much to experience and so much to be a part of in this world.  God has gifted us with an abundance of options at any given moment.  Sometimes our viewpoint as human beings however becomes so limited that we can no longer see the options before us.  We become enclosed by our ideas that we are so fixed upon that we lose sight of All That Is.  I know that when I fear that I am not able to make a decision or am frozen by the limits that I have placed on myself and others, I need to reach out and ask God for a different point of view.  God how do you see this?  Remove from me what is causing my sight to be blinded. God does not condemn us for having a clouded perspective or going off and running with what we think we “know”. God simply invites us to ask if how we are viewing things is working for us.  Does my view-point enable me to give love freely?  Does my view-point encourage me to grow and learn a step at a time?  Does my point of view allow me to be open to being touched by all that I am experiencing?  Having spent a weekend with four of my favorite people in the world, I am amazed at how the power of friendship can transform lives.  I am so blessed to have these women in my life and am continually touched by their willingness to grow in friendship even after 30 years of knowing each other.  With all our imperfections, mistakes, some times being closer than others, we come together to be in each other’s presence once a year to bear witness to love by spending time together.  They have always taught me the value of acceptance even when maybe they couldn’t practice it for themselves.  They have shown me the power of committment and the willingness to keep going even when things don’t look so bright.  I am eternally grateful to God for these living angels and for my openness to receive the love that resides within us all. They have helped shape my view of the world.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to view things differently when we find that our viewpoint isn’t working.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We have the gift of a beautiful mind.  We have the gift of a beautiful body.  We have the gift of a beautiful heart.  We have the gift of a beautiful soul.  All that we are is a gift.  A gift to us.  A gift to the world.  As children we know exactly what to do with gifts when we get them–we receive them, we are excited, we open them up and explore them.  We do so because we are in the moment of being given that gift.  There is nothing for us to do except accept it.  We may not know what is in the gifts or how our lives might change as a result of them but we accept them nonetheless.  As time passes we learn how to ask for more specific things and create expectations of what we will get.  Then we learn disappointment at not getting what we want and it alters how we receive any of the gifts we are given.  Before we know it we find ourselves not as able to receive gifts because we have specific expectations and requirements.  We lose the experience and block our hearts from the gift of receiving.  The good news is that we can be restored to joy of receiving if we invite the Giver of All Gifts to open us up to the everyday gifts that are being showered upon us all the time.  The Greatness of God is that even when we have forgotten how to receive gifts, the do not stop being given by the Giver.  Like all things, we simply need to be open to letting go of our ideas of what it means to accept gifts.  When God gives, it is not with conditions or expectations.  The simplest way that we can re-engage in the receiving process is through two words: Thank You. Thank you for the sunset. Thank you for the breath that I just took in.  Thank you for the eyes through which to see my challenges today. Thank you for the compassion to forgive myself and others. My prayer for us today is that we be willing to renew our gift of receiving by saying thank you as many times as we can remember.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

One of the most amazing creatures that we have on this planet are birds.  I remember as a child simply marveling at how they could go from place to place by defying gravity and just jumping up and flying away.  I so wanted to fly away. If I had thought to ask God to change myform, a bird would have been it.  To be free to, to soar, to explore from above.  One of my favorite gospel songs is “His Eye Is On the Sparrow” about how God watches over us.  Jesus even referenced how the birds do not worry themselves about whether they will be provided for.  If I trust in a God that created All That Is, then I can soar to new heights of understanding and being by stepping into and claiming that inheritance.  If I am willing to let go of my perspective that holds me down, then my eyes are opened to a whole new world in which I am free to be.  With God we can soar. Our hearts, our spirits long to be as close to God as possible and we are restless until we rest in Him.  I noticed that when I let go of an idea that I am familiar with that has grounded me and keeps me from looking up, I feel lighter.  I am no longer weighted down by my fixed perspective because I have asked God to enlighten my mind.  My prayer for us today is that we be willing to offer up an idea that keeps us grounded and offer it up to be lightened up by God.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Amid this vast and brilliant human experience that seems overwhelming and complicated exists a deeper experience that is deep within us of simplicity and love.  This deeper experience invites us to slow down long enough to hear its voice and heed its call to return home. Our home is within our spirit that is united with The Great Spirit.  I am able to see it when I slow down from the ever spinning wheel of the world and its circumstances.  It is then that I notice a glance of acknowledgment from one human being to another.  I see the warmth of a smile, feel the gentle kiss of the wind, and sense the embrace of the joy when I hear someone laugh.  It sounds like a hallmark card but it is true.  When I slow down long enough to be present in the moment, even if for just a moment I can see and experience all these joyful and precious exchanges.  It is when I stop to breathe that I am aware of them.  It is not about being Pollyanna (although, one must admit she did help shift the energy of that town so beautifully through her simple ways of love), it is about embracing the truth of who I am and with whom I am truly connected.  The pause gets me there, the breath helps me take it in.  There are no doubt, millions of reasons to keep pushing and doing and making and happening.  These are how my ego justifies its existence.  But in that sacred invitation of the breath my spirit quietly whispers–that is not all there is, take a look.  My prayer for us today is that we seize the opportunity with one of our breaths to ask God to help us notice what else is happening from our spirit’s perspective.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We are beings of light and love because Our Creator is The Being of Light and Love.  We are filled with peace and generosity because Our Creator IS PEACE and GENEROSITY.  All the desires of our heart at the most primal level are to embody the qualities that most resembled that from which we were created.  Our human experience with all its bumps and crashes gets us a bit off course.  We become wedded to the idea that the physical world is the only one that exists or at least that it is the most important one.  That is because our ego needs something with which to identify itself.  It cannot wrap its head around the concept of Infinity or Timelessness.  When we choose to go along with our ego’s programming life is a chore and maybe we get lucky and are able to reach the accolades that are shown to us to matter most in life, but  most of us will fall short on some level.  Something will not work out the way it is “supposed” to in the physical realm because our soul is utilizing the situation for growth and an opportunity to learn more about love.  Our soul is not concerned with how it measures up to societal standards.  When I find myself face to face with a sense that I have “failed” or “messed up” in my job or in a friendship or on the road, my head wants to rip me a new one about how I am not measuring up.  Then within me when I get quiet enough is my spirit that says there is something I can learn here.  If nothing else, it is a reminder that the “failure” or the “mess up” isn’t the full story.  If I stop,look to God, and ask: Show me how to see this, then I have an opportunity to be present with a greater sense of who I truly am. My prayer for us today is that we seize our next mess-up as an invitation to stop our identification with only the physical world and ask for God’s perspective.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The system of our minds, bodies and spirits is truly magnificent  Not only our own but how ours interacts with others and the world around us.  When we step into the power embodied in being present to the miracles we are living each moment we are free to create more of that magnificence.  Our hearts and our spirits call us to be a part of that creation.  A call to step outside of the automatic programming of our mind and do what we are called to do.  This is stepping into the Divine invitation to co-create.  It is as though our spirits have an obligation to its Creator to live out the calling.  It may seem scary and unfamiliar but there is no harm in Spirit because we are no longer operating in a finite world.  With God all things are possible.  My prayer for us today is that we listen to the intuitions and callings of our spirit to create love and align ourselves more fully with God.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

We are the embodiment of Spirits of the Universe in this world.  We are not simply human beings.  We are so much more than that.  Our egos would have us believe that we are simply human beings and when things end here it is the end.  Our spirits know that there is more to our existence than what we physically experience on this earth.  We have asense when we get quiet enough that this is true. We feel it in the energy exchanged between human beings and nature.  We sense it in the unexplained occurrences.  When we connect on a heart level with another human being, there is something more powerful than just a look or a glance.  In that moment we are being used to bring the Spirit of God into the physical realm.  We are the messengers of love.  We are constantly being sent messages of love to remind us of who we are at our core.  It is easy to think that what is going on is just about us.  But that is a definition that is only ego based.  We are instruments and channels of the Divine.  If we are open then God can utilize us and we can experience the truest sense of self.  My prayer for us today is that we ask how we can best be used as instruments of love even if we arent’ aware of it.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Our Creator so magnificently set up a system that allows us at every turn to know that we are not alone.  Perhaps God knew that we would have the tendency to align ourselves with our ego mind that is looking to separate us.  Thus is the dance of life.  The step in and out of connection with ourselves, with each other and with God.  It seems as though if there were an assignment given to us in our time on earth it is how to remain to connected to all that is when we live with an ego-mind that is always seeking to define itself as separate.  Most of us have had an experience of being connected with another and feeling the flow of love and energy back and forth.  It gives and brings life just in its existence.  Conversely, most of us have also had the experience of the breakdown of that and the subsequent heart-ache of not feeling connected and together.  Because we are designed to be in union with All That Is, the lack of togetherness can be devastating. Our ego comes to the rescue with justifications about how we are better than or less than the other with whom we no longer feel connected.  It swoops in to save us with the best it has to offer us-separateness.  Our Spirit at the same time, very quietly invites us to a deeper experience of togetherness with Our Creator.  When human connections seem to fail, it is an invitation to seek out the Infinite Togetherness that is guaranteed us if we look to connect with it.  There is a breakdown that causes a breakthrough. It is hard when I have come face to face with the frailty of connecting with my fellow human beings.  Were it not for the constant pursuit of my heart by God, I probably would have completely shut off the world a long time ago.  Today, however, when I come across that experience I know that I can quickly return to my heart and align my Spirit with All That Is through my breath, gratitude, a simple, “God, are you there?“, or recognition of beauty.  Then the separation I feel begins to dissipate because I recognize that it is simply a product of myego-mind’s imagination and agenda of separateness and is not based in The Infinite Reality.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to answering the invitation of togetherness from our Creator at the very moment we might want to chuck it all and just stay on our own.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

All that God creates, God creates with love and loves.  This love carries the importance of All That Is at all times.  When we begin to see ourselves as inferior based on the world’s view we are taking on an idea that is not of God.  God does not measure and compare as we do.  That is strictly an ego-based system of thinking.  It creates competition and the need to assert oneself as other than, not part of the Oneness that is truth.  I never understood that all of my years of telling myself that I was less than or that I didn’t matter or that no one cared, was really one big ego trip.  I thought I was being the opposite of prideful, but I was just on a different end of the pride spectrum. It is pride in reverse, but it is still pride.  When I find myself comparing who I am to others and coming out as less than–my body isn’t as thin as hers, my idea wasn’t as good as his, my car isn’t as cool as hers, I am not married and they are, they got to it before I did, and so on and so forth.  My mind will conjure up a million reasons to convince me that I am less than because it sees it as motivation to do more and be more and somehow prove that I am enough.  Meanwhile, I am completely separate and on my own in doing this because it is not long before I start applying that same world view to God.  However, God would never see His creation as anything less than complete and whole and love.  It is then that I must pause and ask God, Help me to see me as You see me.  My prayer for us today is that we be open to pausing long enough to question the world’s view of us and ask God to help us adopt the view of the one who Created us from the start.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen