The six principles that are the essence of the GODS KIDZ brand are:
* Love
* Respect
* Humility
* Forgiveness
* Integrity
* Gratitude
To really have a strong connection and foundation with God, one really must understand certain principles, which are universal, yet spiritual and are crucial to having a well-rounded view.
These principles are ones that helps us to navigate through life more simply to live more simply to deal with trials and tribulations that life throws out at you. Focusing on these principles that are common to all humanity can help us balance the way we live our lives and allow us to make better decisions by incorporating God in that decision-making. By living more in accordance with these principles, we can be become better people and hopefully find our true purpose in our lives.
These principles are universal and common to all people. When you embody and integrate them into daily spiritual practice, they are a pathway to self-realization and self-acceptance. These are the most important that will start the foundation that we need to have as the primary foundation:
1. Love
This is a universal principle that we all need that is a part of our existence. All living things require love to survive including ourselves. Most of us entered this world in the space of love. We need to know first and foremost that God is Love, and that love is unconditional, and second, we need to know that we must develop ourselves as Love, since God is Love. In order to approach God, we must grow ourselves as Love. It is imperative that this awareness is known in order for them to embrace the need to love themselves. We must learn how to attend to our own needs for love before we can love others. When we are not connected spiritually, we run the rest of neglecting happens, we become emotionally toxic and are not whole enough to give love to others. That toxicity causes us to question are self- esteem and self-respect. Our constant connection and direct communication with God allows us to be emotionally empowered. This empowerment gives us the freedom to nurture all individuals by being the caring, compassionate, thoughtful, kind and wonderful human beings that we are.
2. Respect
Respect is the second principle that is important in our existence. There is diversity among us, through faith, sex, culture, age, and status, we are all are a part of the divine family. Children need to learn that everyone we meet deserves our respect because we honor God that is within them. In a practical sense, respect means to take someone’s feelings needs, thoughts, ideas, wishes and preferences into consideration. It is fair to say that it also means taking all of these seriously and giving them worth and value. It also includes acknowledging them listening to them, being truthful to them and accepting their individuality. Although these are many variables and values associated with respect, the principle of respect is in the reference to our spiritual relationship with God. Having a sense of respect for ourselves and others is crucial and critical in our everyday being.
3. Forgiveness
This is the third principle that is very important in our spiritual development. There's no one definition of forgiveness. But in general, forgiveness is a decision to let go of resentments and thoughts of revenge. Forgiveness is the act of untying yourself from thoughts and feelings that bind you to the offense committed against you. This can reduce the power these feelings otherwise have over you, so that you can a live freer and happier life in the present. Forgiveness can even lead to feelings of understanding, empathy and compassion for the one who hurt you. Many adults fail to understand the need to extend forgiveness to others. It’s no wonder, then, that children often have difficulty understanding the concept. Unless we extend forgiveness to others, our lives may be poisoned by anger and hard feelings. Past hurts can magnify as they accumulate, and once-loving relationships can become damaged almost beyond repair. Once we learn how to forgive, we choose a new understanding of our situation; we are now free to extend mercy and compassion to ourselves and those who wronged us. This reconnects us back to our real self. Getting back to our real self allows us to truly embrace and connect with God freely.
4. Humility
The fourth principle is humility. Through an attitude of modesty and unpretentiousness, we realize that we don't have to raise ourselves up with self-importance. God in his own way and time will reward us with whatever we need, as long as we rid ourselves of pride and maintain an attitude of gentleness toward all life. The heart of God is full of humility. Children must be instilled early that we must seek to acquire humility, in which the soul becomes truly enlightened with peace. Then what is seen in our lives is the presence God. Instead of pointing to ourselves - "This is me… this is what I have done" - it is our finger pointing God, indeed both our hands outstretched towards God in humility, showing both to ourselves and others just how great and wonderful is the love and mercy God has for us.
We can begin to know the greatness of our God by being humbled before Him, and allowing ourselves to have balance in our lives, humility is important because it allows us to put the focus on the presence of God and not make it about ourselves. As we do this, we begin defining our spiritual journey.
5. Integrity
The fifth principle is integrity. Our connection to our inner reality is strengthened when we align our thoughts, words and actions with truth and have the courage to act with sincerity and honesty. This is the act of letting go of our own will and honoring the divine will instead. God wants us to be people of integrity, people of honor, people who are trustworthy. When a person demonstrates integrity, they display a position of being open and honest. This individual doesn’t have any hidden agendas or ulterior motives. A person of integrity also is true to their word they keep their commitments, and is accountable for their thoughts, feelings and actions. God wants us to be people of integrity. If you don’t have integrity, you will never reach your highest potential. Integrity is the foundation on which a truly successful life is built. You will never have lasting prosperity if you don’t first have integrity.
It is sometimes easy to not be a person of integrity but we must make a commitment to ourselves…Don’t settle for being mediocre…strive to be the very best individual that you can be…not one who complains constantly and does only enough to get by…re member…you are representing the Almighty God. If you live with a commitment to integrity, happiness will be a natural by-product, because God will reward you far beyond your wildest dreams!
Keep in mind that Integrity is doing what is right, not out of the fear of a negative consequence, but because it is what you know to be right…To do what you know is not right only cheats the Universe. And when you cheat the Universe, the Universe will cheat you…..
Living your life with integrity means that anyone at any given time could peek into your life and you will feel at ease. After all, there is nothing to hide and nothing to be ashamed of…You are simply living your life with integrity.
6. Gratitude
The sixth principle is gratitude. When we are grateful and appreciate what life has to offer, it indicates to the universe that we accept whatever has been given to us and that we lack nothing. If we want to attract more prosperity into our lives, we need to start the process of thinking magnanimously and being generous to all of life. All of this opens up the flow of supply into our world because whatever we give to life returns to us. Children express their emotions very early in their development. Gratitude isn’t words, its emotion. It’s opening our heart to experience that lets our energy flow out in a particular way. Emotions are all indicators to us of how we are releasing energy or how we are “vibrating.” These emotions tell us what state our energy is in, and therefore where we are headed in our lives—towards something great that we’ll enjoy, or something not so good, that we won’t enjoy.
Learning to focus on emotions, and to see what they’re telling us about our energy, is an important step in learning to be a conscious creator. And learning to nurture and magnify the emotions that serve us well is an equally important step.
When it comes to dealing with others, children need to learn and understand that gratitude, then, is an acknowledgment, an act of appreciating something good received from another person. We are grateful for a birthday present. We are grateful for a smile or a kind word from a friend. We are grateful for the gift of being healed, when God frees us from a sickness. Gratitude involves giving. It involves receiving. It involves goodness. It involves a contact and an exchange between persons. Gratitude - especially gratitude to God - is important because gratitude involves and expresses the basic elements of our relationship to one another and of our relationship to God.
When we thank God for a blessing received or when we thank another human person for a gift or a kindness, we are expressing the reality of goodness. Something good has taken place here. Something generous has happened. And we are acknowledging that this goodness and this sharing of generosity come to us through another person.
It's not some impersonal action that happens through the agency of impersonal cosmic powers. It is something that happens because somebody wants to do good to somebody else and because that somebody is aware of the goodness that is being proffered and wants to proclaim its reality. Every act of gratitude includes goodness and receptivity and response. And when we are dealing with gratitude toward God, we are dealing with the goodness of God and the receptivity and response on the part of the creatures that God has decided to love. Gratitude toward God on our part involves the loving and living and personal intervention of God into our lives. It involves God's care for us. In one way or another, our gratitude for God's gifts to us is a proclamation and an acknowledgment of everything that is involved with our relationship with the one above. Whatever God does for us is good. Whatever God does for us is gift. Our whole relationship with God is a relationship of receiving and accepting the initiatives of God's love for us. The practice of gratitude toward God is the profession of our awareness of how consistently and continuously and completely God reaches out to us in his love. The more we give thanks for, the more we are expressing our awareness of God's loving involvement in our lives.
And if we give thanks always and for everything, we are professing our conviction that everything that is part of our human existence is an expression of God's love for us.
Why is giving thanks to God so important? Because giving thanks to God is an acknowledgment of our awareness of God's ongoing involvement in our lives and because the extent and breadth of our gratitude is a sign of our awareness and response to God's ongoing goodness to us.
To be convinced that God loves us is to be convinced that God is constantly lavishing goodness and kindness on us. To make gratitude the central action of our relationship with God is to respond to the relationship that God offers to us.
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