God Awareness

Photograph courtesy of Joshua Burgard

Today's blog considers the numerous ways we encounter God in our moment-by-moment daily lives. Seeing God is a matter of awareness-----of shifting one's attention away from self onto God. Yesterday I spent more time than I want to admit feeling put upon and sorry for myself.

Fortunately, I stumbled upon a reminder during my morning meditation this morning that God is always present in our lives but that we often fail to see Him. This made me reflect upon the times I'd seen Him yesterday. I actually encountered God many times yesterday. To name a few, I saw Him when I said prayers, when I taught class, when I got what I thought was an undeserved parking ticket and it was revoked, and when I led a meeting that introduced "beginners in recovery" to the spiritual seeds that form the framework of twelve step recovery. Had I not heeded the "road signs" that encouraged me to stay on the spiritual path God is having me travel, I would have reacted differently and failed to see him anywhere around me.

God was definitely there when I was able to remove "my ego" from a dispute over the University's Emeritus Parking policy and accept that it is the traditional "that's the way we've always done it" policy that is enforced rather than the policy that is printed in the Faculty Handbook. Now, I can simply document the discrepancy and the incident and send it on to others of authority to handle. It may go in the trash can, it may result in updating the written policy----the outcome does not matter. The fact that God gave me the grace to "let go of it" meant He was there.

Later in the day, I attended two meetings that were open to the community at Red Door Church. Between teaching in the morning, my visit to DPS, grocery shopping, and remembering to put gasoline in my car's tank, I was tired. I really wanted to go home after the first prayer meeting ended, but God kept me there because He had a purpose for me. I stayed, set up, and led the last meeting of the day. God helped me and others introduce the seeds of twelve step recovery to a room full of people "hungry" for a chance to escape enslavement to their addiction. That was a miracle because the week before there were only four people in attendance, and this week we had to pull out extra chairs to seat everyone.

So remember, even when it may feel like God is far away, God is there with you by your side. The key is opening our eyes and our hearts so that we are able to sense His presence. May God bless and keep you.

If you would like to read more on this topic, please go to: http://evolvingelder.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/seeing-god/