Month: July 2019

Daily Reflection

“As Jesus walked along the shore of Lake Galilee, he saw two fishermen, Simon and his brother Andrew, catching fish with a net. Jesus said to them, “Come with me, and I will teach you to catch people.” At once they left their nets and went with him.” (Mark 1: 16-18)

I have often found myself pondering this Biblical passage, as it seems to come up quite regularly in my daily devotional readings. Was it really that simple? Did Jesus actually appear in the lives of these fishermen where they literally immediately abandoned what they were doing, their families, their livelihood, just like that, and proceeded to follow Him? Or was there more to this story? I honestly wish I knew, because I have a hard time believing it was that easy for them to instantly give up every part of their lives and start following Christ.

I’ve frequently tried to place myself in their shoes, or should I say their sandals, by picturing myself in my own gardens doing my day-to-day pruning, trimming, edging, etc., when out of the clear blue a guy with long hair and a beard abruptly appears on my sidewalk and says “Come with me, and I will teach you to catch people.” In all honesty, in light all the sickness I’ve witnessed over the years in my recovery from addiction, my first thought most likely wouldn’t be that this was Jesus incarnate. Rather, I’d probably be thinking this person might need some mental help. Yet, I’d also like to believe that Jesus would know I’d react that way ahead of time and would in all likelihood not only bring a level of peace with Him that I’d feel right from the start, but would totally know the precise words to say to me that would connect to my soul.

So, did the disciples really just give everything up and follow Jesus right from the start? It really doesn’t matter, because the end result is the same, they saw something in Christ they wanted for themselves and were willing to follow Him anywhere. And that is exactly what I hope I’d do if Christ were to ever appear before me and ask me to follow Him.

Dear God, I pray that I’m open to following You wherever You wish to lead me, for I know that wherever You do, it will be a far better path than any of the ones I’ve ever taken on my own free will in this life.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Thought For The Day

Quote #1

“Nothing in life that’s worth anything is easy.” (Barack Obama)

Quote #2

“Hard work is painful when life is devoid of purpose. But when you live for something greater than yourself and the gratification of your own ego, then hard work becomes a labor of love.” (Steve Pavlina)

Quote #3

“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted.” (David Bly)

Bonus Quote

“This is the real secret to life – to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.” (Alan Watts)

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Grateful Heart Monday

Thanks for joining in to another Grateful Heart Monday where gratitude begins my week, which for today is for one of my sponsees, Aaron, who truly has lent me an incredible hand with my yard work so far this year.

As most of those who know me can testify to, I’m pretty obsessive-compulsive when it comes to my yard and gardens. Each year when spring arrives, one can usually find me outside doing work on them during much of the day. But over the past couple of years, I’ve been finding it harder to keep up with the attention to detail I like to place in them given my physical limitations I continue to endure. In light of that, this year I decided to ask for help, something in previous years I had too much pride and ego to do and usually paid the price in my body because of it. Thankfully though, I think God had a hand in placing Aaron in my life, not only for me to help guide him through the steps, but also for him to help me out with my outdoor burden.

While one might describe our property as the size of a postage stamp, you might be surprised at the amount of cleanup and upkeep it still takes to maintain. Being surrounded by a large number of 60+ year old maple trees (all in bordering neighbor’s yards), I must deal with an annual late spring onslaught of helicopters that pile up everywhere, from my gutters, to the ponds, in the gardens, and in the yard of course too. Many in my shoes might choose to just leave them be and let nature take care of itself, but given how many of them actually come down, it ends up causing more problems than not if I ignore them. One of my neighbors in fact ended up having clogged gutters and tons of little trees growing in them because he let them go for too long. On the other hand, I’m sure some would say how pretty they must look when falling, almost like large brown snow, but frankly, their beauty is grossly outweighed by the amount of late Spring cleanup I always get from them. Cleanup that even translates into having to remove all of my mulch and lay down close to 30 bags of new mulch.

That’s why I was so thankful that Aaron, who had been currently looking for work, agreed to come help me. Over the course of a few weeks, he always showed up on time and definitely was a hard and very thorough worker. I estimate that he probably saved me about 20 hours’ worth of work when all was said and done. While I’m sure most people think I’m crazy sitting out there with shop vacuums sucking up thousands of helicopters that land on my property, Aaron wasn’t one of them and never once complained or judged me for my OCD-based task.

I’m not going to deny the fact that I’m a perfectionist when it comes to maintaining my yard and gardens, because I really am. It’s definitely my outlet for former addiction energy, yet something far healthier that’s for sure. But, finding help that could meet my OCD-based standards is most certainly tough, except Aaron consistently met that and worked like a champ to keep to the detail I place in my yard and gardens.

Nevertheless, after hauling away at least several dozen hefty lawn and leaf bags filled with those helicopters, Aaron proceeded to assist me in removing all the mulch and place down the new batch as well. For most, this work would probably seem quite tedious and monotonous, yet Aaron gave it his all and simply jammed to music in his headphones the entire time he worked, never once complaining, even on days when the heat level was ridiculously high.

In the end, even though I did pay Aaron for his work, I believe it was far worth it because good help is often hard to come by these days. So yes, I’m truly grateful for Aaron who provided me much relief this year thus far in my outdoor work, both on a physical level, and in all honestly, on a mental and emotional one as well…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson