Thank You, God, for This Day

Good morning, my brothers and sisters. It is a beautiful day in God's paradise

We begin, as we always begin: Thank you, God, Lord, Creator, for this day. Thank you for the breathing my lungs, for the light that is already coming, for the people I will meet and the suffering I will be given the privilege to help carry. I am grateful. Deeply, completely, recklessly grateful — even for the troubles. Especially for the troubles.

Because the troubles are not punishment. They are the cross. They are the training. They are the trials and tribulations that Christ himself walked — the same ones that every lion, every lover, every human being who ever rose before dawn and chose to live with full intention has walked. You are not being broken. You are being built.

God Is Not Out There

Here is the simple secret. The one that Jesus — a man like you and me, born into difficulty,misunderstood, rejected — figured out in the dust of Galilee:

God is not out there.

God is not in the temple, not in the title, not in the bank account. Not in the silver spoon or the bronze or the charcoal. Not at the top of the mountain — though God is on the mountain. Not only in the cathedral — though God is in the cathedral. God is also in the gutter. In the morgue. In the fertility clinic at 3 a.m. In the gang. In the jail. In the anxiety. In the dark night of the soul when you are certain you have been forgotten.

You have not been forgotten. You cannot be forgotten, because God is within you. God is every thought you think.The good ones. The dark ones. The afraid ones. The grateful ones. All of them.God is the river, and your mind is where it runs.

Christ gave us this.This one radical, revolutionary, world-changing truth: the kingdom of God is within you. Not earned. Not distant. Not conditional. Within. Now. Always.

The Wall of the Inspired

This morning I look at my wall — the faces and names of my brothers and sisters who have walked this road before me. Jim. Craig. David. Wendell. Maria. Ray. Ann. Some still here. Some gone to the place God has prepared for all of us — the place where the spirit returns to its source, where the photon goes home.

My dear friend Jim Slotnick wrote a book before glioblastoma took him in his twenties. A short life. A complete life. And I think of Jim every time I am tempted to waste a day in complaint or comparison or fear. Jim didn't have that luxury. Neither do any of us, if we are honest.

We are all Jim. We are all on the same road. And the road ends at the same place for the billionaire and the street sweeper and the fertility doctor who gets up at 3 a.m. to do his hundred push-ups, make his bed, and pray. The only question is how we walk it.

I Am Not Finished — Neither Are You

I have lived seventy years on this earth. Born March 12, 1956. Kicked out of school. In a gang. Couldn't read. Father in jail. Anxiety, depression, inferiority. Breakup and makeup. Fear and trembling. All of it.

And still — God gave me all of it as agift.

Not despite the hard things. Through them. Every struggle was a classroom. Every failure was a doorway. Every dark night eventually gave way to a morning exactly like this one, where I get to sit with you and say: you are not done. You are never done. You are always evolving, always growing, always being created anew.

Sarah Young writes it beautifully in Jesus Calling: "Come to me for understanding, since I know you far better than you know yourself. I view you through eyes of grace." That is it. That is the whole medicine. You are seen through eyes of grace. Not judgment. Grace.

So hold the fear. Hold the worry. Hold the regret, the judgment, the negativity, the comparison — hold all of it, then hand it to the Lord. Not because you are weak. Because that is the practice. That is what it means to live in faith. Not the absence of fear. The handing-over of it, every single day, to the One who holds it without breaking.

The Christ-Pattern Is Universal

Whatever your path —Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, agnostic, atheist, somewhere beautifully in between — the pattern of Christ is the pattern of the cosmos: love, suffer, forgive, rise, love again.

Laozi knew it. Buddha walked it. Abraham trusted it. Moses stood at the burning bush of it. Muhammad surrendered to it. David sang it in the psalms of his own broken, anointed life. And Jim Slotnick, in his twenties with a terminal diagnosis, lived it.

U.S. Andersen wrote the three magic words: I Am God — not in arrogance, but in recognition. You are not separate from the source. You never were. The ancient mystics, the quantum physicists, the molecular biologists who marvel at the ten million glycoforms that a single protein can become — they are all describing the same infinite creative intelligence that animates everything from the photon to the lion to the human being lying awake at 3 a.m. asking, does my life matter?

Yes. It matters infinitely.

Awaken the Beast Within

You are the lion. The lion does not graze anxiously through the grass, nibbling at a hundred things. The lion rests deeply, rises fully, hunts with complete intention, feasts with gratitude, and rests again. That is the rhythm. That is the Ferrari running on the right fuel.

Fatty meat. Fasting. Salt. Faith. Work. Kindness.

These are not restrictions. They are liberations. They are the return to the ancient design — the hunter in the garden, nose to tail, fat and organs, strong and clear, fueled by the sun's stored energy, the mitochondria humming, the glycocalyx intact, the mind quiet and sharp and full of God.

And condemning, criticizing, complaining, comparing — these are the weeds. They grow naturally in the human garden. We do not punish ourselves for them. We simply return, again and again, to the practice: love, kindness, gratitude, forgiveness. The Hawaiians called it Ho'oponopono: I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. Four phrases. The whole medicine.

This Is Your Day

Today, whatever your work is — whether you are building towers or cleaning streets, delivering babies or delivering mail, sitting with the dying or nursing the newborn— be proud of it. Show up fully. Because that work, offered with love, is an act of God moving through the world.

None of it is truly yours. None of it is truly mine. It is God's, on loan to us for the brief, blazing arc of a life. So give it back. Give it back every day in the form of service, presence, generosity. Let go. Let God. This is the mastery of the mystery.

You are alone — and you are never alone. You are nothing — and you are infinite. You were born with no possessions — and you carry the entire universe within you.

Breathe. Smile. Stand still, and know that God is within you.

Get up. Make the bed. Do the hundred push-ups. Say the prayer. Go to work. Love someone today who is hard to love. Forgive someone today who has not asked to be forgiven. Help someone today who cannot help you back.

That is the mission. That is the whole mission. That is Christ. That is Buddha. That is the lion. That is you.

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Thank you, God, Lord, Creator, for this masterful day.
I love you, my brothers and sisters. Go be the light.

— Dr. Robert Kiltz‍

‍CNY Fertility |Kiltz Mighty Tribe | Kiltz Nation