My soul melts from heaviness; strengthen me according to Your word. Psalm 119:28
Recommended Reading: I CORINTHIANS 3:1-16: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
COMMENTS: Successful athletes must be disciplined, possess a clear vision of the goal, a passion and willingness to sacrifice to achieve the goal, and also a skilled coach to guide and motivate and encourage and make the athlete follow the goal. But natural talent and ability is also vital. Take a moment to reflect on an example you are familiar with either from your own family or from news or sports. During Olympics games, successful candidate and metal winners often share their life experiences and impact parents and coaches have had on their lives and successes. Love and devotion from these people is also very evident, but also their sacrifices are evident as much as sacrifices of Olympians.
As we look at the lives of Christ’s disciples and Christians of the first century recorded in the New Testament, we see parallels. Their goal and race started with salvation and continued until their death. Their race was a race of being faithful and sharing Christ’s redemptive Gospel to as many as possible. They gave up wealth, security, safety, and even life. They endured persecution and suffering beyond what we could imagine or endure. But then again, I’m sure most feel the same way about the Olympic competitors.
Likewise, those of us who work or worked for a large employer in a team setting have been amazed at times at what can be accomplished when team works together instead of competing with each other. None strive for own recognition or success but for accomplishment of the team goal and success of the team. I worked over 39 years for an employer with that goal and enjoyed that team spirit over personal recognition as the atmosphere and mind set. Because of that, trust and friendships flourished generally, but there were threads of selfishness and self-ambition that would hinder or tarnish team success at times.
Paul compared his life as a race, as so should we. Our journey with Christ and abiding fellowship and relationship with His Holy Spirit sets us on a journey, a race of discovery and adventure while encountering tasks and work, much of which may seem to bring little lasting value but also a few instances of significance.
OK, most of our days are filled with routine tasks that repeat themselves every day, but most Christians in the world outside the USA or many Christians based countries, must do so under constant threat of prison or violence at hands of radical groups or individuals offended by their faith in Christ. The race they run is more intense and requires more faith consistently.
But every Christian is in constant need of a constant relationship with the Holy Spirit to achieve and sustain a faithful life and stay on focus of the goal of obedience and faithfulness. You and I, whether we just became a Christian recently or 50 years ago, all have times of weak faith and times of strong faith. When we are diligent in prayer and devotion and keep our eyes on Him, we are prepared for life’s battles and dangers and opportunities. We allow life’s distractions and overscheduling and poor priority choices and impatience to prevail. When we compromise or cut short our morning and regular time with Him, we then quickly become ill prepared.
Truth is, our job is accepting Christ’s gift and being faithful to Him by obeying Him and staying focused on Him. His job is providing the help and council and resources we need to be and remain faithful. His job is also to prepare our eternal home and be faithful to keep His promises to us.
Let’s not forget He is infinitely better at His job than we are. He has infinitely more experience and resources at His disposal than we do. That makes our failures understandable but not excusable. So instead of beating ourselves up when we fail or fall short (or beat up others for their failures), we should turn back to Him on our knees. Since Christ’s example is perfect and ours has been and still is less than perfect, we need to always seek a deeper walk with Him so as we age, we and others will see progress in us becoming more Christ-like and field of influence increasing. Our goal at end of life is for Christ to greet us with “Well done good and faithful servant…” and not “depart, I never knew you…” Likewise, achieving wealth or possessions or success or popularity or power or respect of others fades at life’s end but impact of our lives and faith and others and others who accepted Christ because of our faithfulness is what lasts and goes with us to heaven. All else is left behind.
Join me in taking some time to reflect on years spent and seek God’s help in evaluating how we spent those years and seek His forgiveness for poor choices and time squandered but also His help and council in spending remaining years wisely and as He intends us to. AMEN? AMEN!
“Within the Scripture there is a balm for every wound, a salve for every sore.”
Charles H. Spurgeon
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 163 blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present.
You may also access my facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951
My hope and prayer is, they will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.
Published by donsdevotions
Don McDaniel - Who am I?
Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever.
Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me.
I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private.
However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool.
Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry.
He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 .
I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine.
I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward.
Don & Arlene McDaniel
In His Service,
Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ )
You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials. View all posts by donsdevotions
donsdevotions 