Month: January 2014

Many people have probably heard the story about The Good Samaritan. But how many can say they’ve truly experienced it themselves? After what happened to me the other day, I believe it’s safe to say that I’m now one of them.

For those who might not know what the tale of The Good Samaritan is about, it comes from the Bible in the Gospel of Luke (10:29-37). In it, Jesus shares a parable about a Jewish traveller who is beaten, robbed, and left half dead along the road. Both a priest and a Levite walk by avoiding this traveller completely. But when a Samaritan comes along, he helps the injured man, even though Samaritans and Jews at that time generally despised each other. Today this parable has been used to refer to any instance where a person reaches out to help a stranger in need.

I have always been fascinated with this parable because of how many in this world today still act like those “priests” and “levites”. They witness others getting beaten, robbed, mugged, raped, or taken advantage of in some way and they never say or do anything about it. They also often observe those who might need a general kind of helping hand during one of those little crises that can happen in life. But there too, they always make excuses and avoid doing so. And it is this very thing that happened to me only a few days ago.

I had been driving on an icy and snow-covered neighborhood road heading to an AA meeting. In front of me was a car that appeared stationery, empty, and parked. As I proceeded to drive around it, it suddenly started to turn straight into me, unaware that I was trying to pass by it. I slammed on my brakes but had no ability to stop my vehicle due to the slippery conditions beneath me. Somehow the other vehicle narrowly avoided hitting the right side of my car by mere inches as it maneuvered back onto the road and came to a standstill. I, on other hand, careened straight ahead into a large snow bank, where it there became completely stuck. I sat for a moment feeling a little shocked and then looked over at the other vehicle to make sure whoever was driving it was ok. But sadly, what happened next was a good example of those “priests” and “levites” of today.

I watched as the other vehicle’s driver quickly spun away, not even once making sure that I too was ok. Then I saw how one car after another continued to pass by even while I waved my arms for their help. I honestly thought about the story of The Good Samaritan as each of those car’s drivers noticed me and I began to wonder if anyone would ever come to my aid. Thankfully, God eventually sent me two of them. But it’s the first one, an elderly woman, who made this story get even better.

Upon hearing that I was heading to an AA meeting, she told me that she had been sober for 12 years but hadn’t been to one of them in a very long time. When I told her that I had been sober for over 18 years and that I still went to meetings regularly because they helped me on my spiritual path, I could see it touched her in a very positive way. When she and the other kind man were able to finally free my car from it’s temporary prison, I said thank you and God bless to each of them. But it’s the spiritual love I felt from that elderly woman that day, which made me question whether God wanted all of it to happen just as it did.

Regardless, I am quite happy to say I made it to that AA meeting on time and even got to share this story with everyone there that day. And as I share about it again right now, I find myself feeling very grateful to my Higher Power. It really is wonderful to know there are still some Good Samaritans out there in the world these days. My only hope though is that there are many others too.

So if a day comes where you find yourself on a road whether it’s ice and snow covered or not, if you happen to see a stranger who could use your help, it’s my hope and prayer that you too will become The Good Samaritan…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

One year ago I made a promise to myself that I would write a single entry in this very blog each day for the next 365 days. I’m not actually sure though if I really believed I could do it when I made that promise to myself. You see my real truth is that I usually failed to keep any promises I made to myself throughout most of my entire life. But something has radically changed within me over the past year and a half that has helped me to reach this goal and fulfill that promise I made a year ago. What is it? One word…God.

If I took a snapshot of my life two years ago today, there is only one real difference between the me then and the me now. And that’s the level of how much I was living in self-sufficiency versus God-sufficiency.

The definition I like to use that best describes the self-sufficiency I lived with for years and years is “having extreme confidence in one’s own resources or powers”. This was totally me for way too long where I over utilized the only things I thought I had to offer in this world such as money, sex, and an extreme power of persuasion. While I survived doing this for over two decades, I wasn’t ever truly happy and I frequently made promises to myself to try to change that, but never kept to any of them.

All of that changed though in the beginning of 2012 when I parted ways with the last people I had in my life who I allowed to keep me in those places of living more in self-sufficiency. At first, it was incredibly fearful when I let them go, but as time moved forward, I became more God-sufficient and began to see my spiritual strength grow from within. About a year later, several people had suggested I create a blog and start doing a daily reflection of my life’s spiritual experiences. By that point, it had been over six years since I had done any writing with regularity, but somehow having a lot more God-sufficiency gave me enough strength and courage to pursue it. And now it’s been 365 straight days of me doing this very exercise.

I believe all of us in this world are capable of making promises to ourselves and actually keeping to them, but it takes something much greater than our own self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency can only get us so far, but having more God-sufficiency can lead us to having an everlasting supply of energy to accomplish any task we set forth for ourselves. I’m so grateful to have made it to this writing milestone and now I know I have the spiritual strength within today, to keep any promise I make for myself.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson