Midweek Faith Lift
Let’s Get Real!! – Embracing Your God Power
Todd Davis, Guest Speaker
September 9th, 2026
Good morning, my friends, and welcome to Unity Church of Ames!
My name is Todd Davis, and I am Rev. Deb’s husband. Deb was planning to attend the 50-year birthday of Unity of Fox Valley in Batavia, Illinois with Sue Podraza-Nagle. Unfortunately, she was not able to attend due to catching the flu. Let’s all surround her in love & healing light. She is doing much better now. Thank you all very much for joining me and it is an honor to be in front of you this morning. It is fantastic to “see” your beautiful faces & spirits. Both here and online, don’t cha know!
Rev. Deb helped me to select this topic, which is a first for me. The topic of being real resonated with me, so off I went with it!
So, jumping right in, what does being real and claiming your own authentic God power look like to me? It means being genuine, transparent, not playing games, owning your mistakes, and not hiding who you really are. Many examples………
• Being honest with yourself, even when it is uncomfortable or even painful.
• Speaking your truth to power, being heard and seen.
• Turning away from those people who do not support you in your spiritual growth. Not rejecting them, just turning away. I do know that this is easier said than done.
• Taking time to be self-reflective.
• Even if you are extroverted, taking time to be alone in the quiet.
• Spending time to hike if you are able, or just being in nature.
• Stopping everything and taking time to notice what you see, hear, feel and smell in the now moment.
• Listening to music that either calms you or energizes you and your passion.
• Sharing in a respectful way that you disagree with other people’s opinions or comments.
• Speaking up to a family member, friend or partner when they have said something that was unkind or didn’t land well. (I need work on this.)
• Taking a couple of hours to declutter one room and one room only at a time in your house.
• Creating that dish that you have wanted to create for a long time, even if that recipe has copious amounts of calories.
• Saving money & taking time to visit that place that you have always wanted to visit your entire lifetime. For me, one place was Cannon Beach, Oregon. I finally went to visit it in 2019. It was absolutely gorgeous, and sunny, by the way!!
• Do at least one thing that you have put off or were afraid to do that strikes your passion. It could be as simple as putting together a large Lego structure, it that strikes your fancy.
• Commit to heart-felt forgiveness of others AND yourself! It’s not a mental exercise. It is a process. In Matthew 18:21&22, Jesus states, not 7 times, but 77 times.
• Claim your own personal power, which is God power. Be real, not perfect. Observe, don’t absorb.
• And by all means, do not take your life too seriously!!
I would like to share the story about Jesus going to the mountainside. This comes from Matthew 14:23, however the story comes from most of Chapter 14. After he left the crowd of 5000 with the five loaves and the two fish, Jesus went to the mountainside alone to pray and he stayed on the mountain for the entire evening. The quote reads: “And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.
Jesus went off to pay by himself many times. I mention this due to the importance of going away by yourself to pray, meditate and to digest & process your life experiences.
Now, I would like to share with you the state of my being while I was in my 30’s. I tried very, very hard to be a good boy! I understand that folks in their 30’s are adults, of course, but I felt like a boy then. I wanted to feel safe, accepted, and fit into the status quo. I did not feel like Todd at all for well over a decade. I was only going through the motions. I knew that I was not doing, “all the right things”, however, I thought if I had the “God consciousness” and practiced Unity principles, things would turn out well. LOL!
Well, it didn’t. I felt lousy as a step-parent. I people-pleased everyone, especially my family and folks at the church that I attended where I had nothing in common with them and I felt like an outcast. I smiled when I felt horrible inside. I tried to fill a family role that did not fit me. I knew that I was somewhat smart, but I had no idea of my innate intelligence and creativity until I took an IQ test in my late 30’s. I was selling myself short every moment of the day without realizing it. Every job I was in, I was underpaid and overqualified because I didn’t believe in myself. I reacted to every situation with fear & anger. If you saw me then, you would not recognize me with where I am today, however, I refuse to condemn my inner 34 & 35 year-old. He did the best that he knew how and I bless him!
You know, to my credit, though, I spent a lot of time and energy during this period to heal what I had carried from my childhood. I journaled, attended meetings, saw a therapist and read lots of books. A part of me still believed that I would get through this and I reach a point where I would have some self-efficacy and contentment. It started in my early 40’s. What I need to remember about late bloomers is that they do bloom. That beats the alternative, for sure, eh?
So, In my early 40’s, a whole new life for me opened up before my eyes. I’ll cover this in a future talk………
In Mark 11:20-24, Jesus “zapped” and killed a non-bearing fig tree. I’ll read.
20 In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. 21 Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” 22 Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.[b] 23 Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. 24 So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received[c] it, and it will be yours.
The point of the reading is that the Christ within me was slowly “zapping” the non-bearing fig trees in my life and that continues to happen to this day. It’s a process………
This brings me to the last part of my talk, which involves being real in the collective, our country. The “powers that be” do not hold the power in our current situation. We, the People do!! Part of being real and authentic is to recognize that believing that we are at the total whim of a group of people who inflict pain & misery is simply not true!
***I believe that as souls, we chose to be here during this time to help the world and our collective consciousness to evolve. People are waking up and we are slowly becoming more real, authentic & empowered!!
So, what is our responsibility, collectively to move our energy forward & higher in consciousness?
• Vote!!! Regardless of the state you are in, check to make sure that you are on the voter rolls. Find out when early voting starts and the exact location of your polling station.
• Continue to rally, petition & protest locally regarding surveillance, data centers, water rights, illegal detention, and the removal of native wildlife on public lands.
• Stand up even more for the rights of our communities of color and LGBTQ communities.
• Check your privacy settings on your phones and devices.
• Be very conscious of where you purchase your food as well as its origins & contents.
• learn to see the narcissism, gaslighting and toxicity in our government & elected office holders.
• Do not!! And I repeat, do NOT let them take away your inner power & joy! The USA belongs to us, not them.
First, I would like to read the Daily Word from Friday, August 28, 2026 and the subject is forgiveness. (Read Daily Word)
In closing, I would like to read a poem. A couple of weeks ago, I was attending an industry related tradeshow in Tampa, Florida. There were large booths & displays from 60-70 meetings destinations in the U.S. & several in Canada. Examples include Boise ID, Detroit, Quebec City, Ogden UT, Branson, Albuquerque, Long Island, Traverse City MI, and many others. One of the destinations was Discover Durham, North Carolina. They had the “Durham Poetry Fox” with them. I asked the canine to type me a poem about “intuition” on his old manual typewriter. He made it up on the spot!! I’ll read it now………
Intuition
at times
the noise
is more than I can bear
and I want to fold
silence around me
just to hear
a thought in my own head
but I must exist
in the world
to know what it is
listen across
and through
the noise
to find the strain
that makes sense
and my intuition
awakens
I find the voice
beneath all this
with which to have
a conversation
~~ the poetry fox
Thank you so much for joining me today. It has been a pleasure!
Blessings on the Path and much gratitude …