Month: April 2016

Finding A Wallet With $1600 In It…

What would you do if you found a wallet that had $1600 in it? This was a question posed by someone in a meeting I went to recently where several people responded there in saying they would take the money and throw the wallet away in the garbage.

While I can’t say that’s what I’d do today if I was the one who found it, I must admit there were times before I ever worked on my recovery from addiction and before I ever worked on my spiritual condition that I would have done the very same thing.

Thankfully, I’ve grown a lot since then in both my recovery and my spiritual condition to know that karma usually comes back around. Maybe that’s why I lost a wallet more than once already in this lifetime and had to go through the frustrations of losing whatever money was in them, getting a new license, cancelling credit cards and having various identifications resent to me.

I’ve also often heard that when money is gained in dishonest ways that karma generally comes back around three times worse. So that $1600 that suddenly feels so great in one’s pocket could turn into over $5000 of medical bills sometime later. Or maybe a huge car accident where one’s vehicle is totaled takes place not too far down the road? Or maybe something else altogether happens to the person in the near future where they incur a big financial toll. I’ve seen this very thing happen to me throughout life whenever I’ve gained money that wasn’t meant for me.

Nevertheless, I will say that today I would feel nothing but guilt if I took the money from the wallet and then threw it away. It just wouldn’t work with my spiritual principles. So what would I do then if I found a wallet with that large amount of money in it. I would do everything I could to identify who the owner was and try to locate them. And if I couldn’t, I’d most likely take it to the closest police station, hoping they would find its owner somehow.

Regardless, I know how easy it would be for the ego to be excited about having $1600 unexpectedly. But walking a spiritual path isn’t easy and making decisions for our highest good usually aren’t very easy either. The ego always tries to get involved rationalizing about how it needs the money to do this or that. Yet I tend to believe that my Higher Power is constantly watching me to see if I choose the road less travelled and in this case I definitely would.

I’m a lot better at choosing the road less travelled these days and money doesn’t rule my life anymore either. That’s why I know I’d do the thing that God would want me to do if I found a wallet one day with $1600 in it. And hopefully you too would do the same and not let your ego convince you otherwise if it should ever happen to you…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“If Prayer Works, Why Doesn’t it Work For Everyone?”

If prayer works, why doesn’t it work for everyone?

This was a question I was asked recently by someone very close to my heart who has been going through a lot of their own pain and struggles in the past few years. I too have wondered this myself a number of times over the last bunch of years. But I think the real question being asked here is better worded like this…

Why do some prayers get answered while others don’t?

This is such a tough question to ponder. Even the greatest spiritual beings in history have had trouble with resolving it. While I can’t say I have the exact answer either, maybe I can best respond like this.

I have struggled with mental, emotional, and physical pain for years now. When it first began I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed for it to end and to return to a much better state of health. When those prayers went unanswered over the course of days, weeks, months, and then eventually years, I began to question my faith and wonder if God even existed. Was anyone even hearing all my prayers? Was anyone out there even listening to any of my tear-soaked words?

At first I was angry and wanted to rebel. I wanted to be resentful at God for letting this happen to me. But over time, something changed. My heart opened. And through that, I began to see all my pain and suffering from a totally different perspective. I realized that if my prayers had been answered years ago I would have never gained the gratitude I have in life for even the smallest of things like I do now. I also wouldn’t have seen that God exists in everyone and everything like I do now. But even more importantly than that, I would never have had my faith as much as it has through all of this. And most likely, if my prayers for healing had been answered long ago, there’s a strong likelihood I would have returned to my life of addictions, because that’s all I ever knew.

Sitting still and waiting on God, praying day in and day out for a brighter day has definitely not been an easy thing to do. Especially when my ego has screamed and screamed and screamed at me, trying to take control saying there must be a better way. Unfortunately, the last time I allowed it to convince me of that, I found myself in a much-worse state that I already was and became heavily medicated just to exist.

So while my prayers for better health haven’t been answered yet, something else has. God has provided me with an abundance of food, water, shelter, clothing, and companionship to keep me going. That’s a lot to be said compared to the millions and millions of people in this world who don’t have one or more of those things on any given day. Seeing that from this perspective helped me to alter my prayers along the way, as now I just ask for the strength to endure until God delivers me into a brighter day. And occasionally I’ve gotten glimpses of that in various ways, ever reminding me that something beyond my comprehension is hearing my prayers and working on my behalf.

In all honesty, looking back, I’m kind of glad that my prayers weren’t answered in the way I wanted because it only would have satisfied my ego and not my soul. And the last thing I want to satisfy is my ego on any level right now, as it’s my ego that has always been the one that has led me to ask those questions of why do some prayers go unanswered. It’s my ego that has always tried to convince me that when my prayers aren’t answered in the way it wants, that God must not exist. It’s my ego that’s always tried to convince me that if God was all-loving, then why would God let bad things happen to me. And the more I’ve listen to my ego, the more I’ve lived in anger, resentment, and frustration, the more I’ve blamed God for everything, and the more I’ve questioned whether it’s even worth it to pray or not. Being in that place did nothing good for me and only left me feeling empty and alone, so that’s why I continue to pray and believe my prayers are still being answered.

So why doesn’t prayer work for everyone and why do some prayers go unanswered?

My answer is simple. I believe it’s the ego that says prayer doesn’t work and it’s the ego that makes one think their prayers aren’t getting answered. If we could just get out of our own way and thinking, we might see that something greater is at work in our lives, that our prayers are being answered, and that it’s probably being done in a fashion far better than anything we could ever have imagined for ourselves…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson