Daily quotes with thoughtful reflections to inspire you every day.

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Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.
-C.S. Lewis

The question of whether or not God exists may have significance beyond any other. It affects the roots of our priority system. It molds our perception of the meaning of life. And, it changes the way we feel about the experience of death.

But, no scientific method, whether philosophical or physical, has yet proven the existence of God. Conversely, no scientific method has yet proven the lack of God’s existence. It’s not likely that it will ever be the case that any one of us in this life will have solid, intellectual knowledge one way or the other.

How Do I Know God Exists?

As a skeptic and one who favors intellectual proof, the lack of solid evidence of God’s existence presents a challenge for me. The fact is, in the intellectual sense, I don’t know that God exists. Knowledge of God’s presence in my life is merely supported by personal experiences, feelings and evidence in the form of events I might otherwise think of as coincidences or luck.

I see the effects of prayer and meditation in the world around me. I feel God’s presence when I meditate or when I practice kindness toward another person. These things build faith in me without building solid intellectual knowledge. In each case, my faith builds as a result of my actions.

How can we live with intention and inspiration without concrete knowledge of God’s existence?

Knowledge or belief of God’s presence wavers for most of us. Such is the nature of faith. Even the most spiritual people on Earth experience doubt.

Faith is not based on knowledge, so it is not something we can just learn about and have. It is something we exercise and practice. It is an investment in our spiritual well-being and requires some commitment. The challenge, then, is making an investment in something in which we have little faith in order to build faith.

Believe to Know

In order to know that God exists, we must first believe. Those who believe see the world differently than those who do not. They see evidence where others see nothing.

Because of this apparent catch 22, building faith takes time. For most of us, it doesn’t start with great leaps of faith. It starts slowly with small commitments and little hops of faith. As our faith grows, we begin to make larger commitments and leaps.

Why Practice Faith?

If building faith seems like a lot of work and you’re not sure it makes sense to work so hard to put faith in something you can not prove, you may want to read my upcoming post: Why Practice Faith?

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Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before, how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.
-Isak Dinesen

When we are inspired, the world around us looks different. Negativity around us does not affect us. But sometimes, negativity brews within us. Never ending responsibilities, failed dreams, difficult relationships, illness, death and money problems may leave us feeling dissatisfied. Anger, grief, frustration, shame, intolerance, fear and even hopelessness are all part of our experience as human beings.

We may strive to be inspired, to practice faith and to look at the world with hope and love, but sometimes we’re just bitter and upset. Here are some ideas on how to feel inspired when plagued with negativity.

1. Release Negativity
   • Sometimes, despite our intention to be spiritual and positive, we have to take some time to work through our human emotions. Crying and ranting to release frustration are sometimes necessary to refocus ourselves.
   • There is a danger in taking this too far though. We must remember that we are not passive victims of our feelings. The feelings we experience are heavily influenced by our decisions, our perspective and the values we choose. However, sometimes these choices are very difficult.
   • We may choose to use our humanness as an excuse to lash out at anyone who displeases us, but we will find ourselves lonely and bitter.
   • We may choose to strive to be loving, spiritual and hopeful, and when this choice becomes difficult, vent our frustrations to a willing friend.
2. Service
   • Service gets us out of ourselves.
   • It helps us focus on the needs of others and what we have to offer.
   • It gives us a sense of connectedness with the rest of the world, thus reducing the significance of our internal strife.
   • We can be of service by volunteering, by working our normal day jobs with a spirit of service in our hearts, by actively looking for opportunities to help others or through countless other small and large acts of kindness.
3. Practice Gratitude
   • Gratitude is the simplest and most effective way to transform a negative state of mind.
   • There is always, without exception, something for which to be grateful.
4. Practice Faith
   • Faith helps build hope. Negativity can not survive for long when confronted with hope.

To continue reading about dealing with negativity, see 7 Ways to be Inspired When Surrounded by Negativity where I talk about dealing with negativity outside of us.

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Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He's going to be up all night anyway.
-Mary C. Crowley

If everything happens for a reason and our fate and destiny are already determined, how can we have free will?

Are our lives predetermined by destiny or do we have the free will to map our own experience? The answer is Yes. Both are true.

Free will and destiny are not opposites. We tend to think of them as opposites because of our linear perception of time.

God and our inner soul or spirit view the universe outside of the influence of time and space. This is how God can be everywhere at every moment. This is why any one of us at any time can be given God’s full, undivided attention through prayer and meditation.

God is everywhere at every time. He is experiencing the decisions you will make tomorrow, the path you traveled yesterday and the thoughts you are having in this moment.

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There is always music amongst the trees in the garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it.
-Minnie Aumonier

When our hearts are calm and silent,

• We see things clearly.
• We build strength.
• We are in tune to unlimited creativity.
• Our intelligence sours.
• Nothing can disturb or interrupt us.
• We are unstoppable.

It is in moments of clear, focused silence, that we can identify with and cooperate with God, and therefore, gain access to God’s unlimited supply of inspiration and creative power.

The sun setting over I-40 in New Mexico.

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"I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all," Teddy said. "It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean."
-J.D. Salinger
Teddy

God is everywhere and everything. We often fail to recognize God when we focus on things we find displeasing, when we lack gratitude and when our thoughts are loud and busy.

Here are a few tips we can use to remove the obstructions to our view of God:

1. Be still and silent whenever you can. Make a daily habit of silent moments perhaps at the beginning or end of the day. Take a deep breath and close your eyes for a moment during the busiest, most hectic moments of the day.
2. Be conscious of your face from time to time. I often find that my eyes, eyebrows and mouth can be tense without any conscious awareness on my part. When consciously lightening up my face, the world feels lighter and God comes back into view.
3. Let go of the desire to control everything. We have the free will to be receptive and to accept God’s guidance or to stubbornly hold fast to our own will. To accept one is to reject the other.
4. Look inside. God is not “out there.” Don’t look to the sky or the distant mountain vistas. God is within our thoughts, our dreams and our bodies. He is his creation.
5. Practice gratitude. God is love, and when we are not fully in love with his creation, we do not see the love that is God. When we are full of gratitude, we see the world as God sees it, and therefore, we see God.

If you have thoughts or ideas on how you see God, please share.

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People see God every day, they just don't recognize him.
-Pearl Bailey

We often think of the idea of getting in touch with God as a process that will someday be complete, at which time we will reach spiritual bliss. We might imagine a long journey from our stress filled lives where we finally get away from it all and arrive someplace new and peaceful.

The spiritual bliss and peacefulness that many of us desire, however, is a product of an awakening rather than a journey. Once we realize that our destination is in this moment, we begin to recognize the calm presence of God within us.

Once we notice that everything that we do and everything we have ever done was done with God, we know that we are already here.

We already have the power of God within us. We are already able to manifest the desires that we have: right here, right now.

As we read, God reads with us. As we think, God thinks. Our thoughts are God’s thoughts. As we feel, God feels. Our feelings are God’s feelings. As we create, God creates with us. Our creations are God’s creations.

God’s presence is not limited by time nor space, and all of His focus, attention and power are available to us:

… right here

… right now

…without limitation.

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Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.
-Hans Margolius

Sometimes, when we look at the world around us, all we seem to see is adversary, war, terrorism, poverty and competition. We may wonder where is the evidence of God’s influence. Where is the inspiration?

The fact is, the influences of conflict are loud, dynamic and demanding of attention, while the influences of inspiration are peaceful, patient, faithful and unassuming.

God is love, energy and creation itself. He exists in our hearts, hands, thoughts and spirits. His influence is seen most clearly when our minds are quiet and our hearts are open.

God has no need for grandiose displays of power and influence. He values the free will of his creations. Conflict, ego, evil or forces of darkness by any name rob us of free will.

God is not often seen in the news or in fictional stories. Media, by its very nature, is loud, dynamic and demanding of attention. Peace and contentment do not make strong television ratings or interesting news stories.

To find inspiration in a world that appears dark, we can not look at the world through the eyes of the media, the disgruntled or the noisy, discontented attention seekers. We must quiet our minds and look at the world through our own eyes.

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