Seven times a day I praise you. Psalm 119:164
Recommended Reading: PSALM 119:164-168 “164 Seven times a day do I praise thee because of thy righteous judgments.165 Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.166 Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation, and done thy commandments.167 My soul hath kept thy testimonies; and I love them exceedingly.168 I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee.”
COMMENTS: Retirement years are rich fulfilling years for me. I find great joy in having and using my time writing and sharing these devotions. I find no lack of things needing done or fixed each day, so my days are full. My father often said of his retirement years, “I wonder how I found time to work before I retired.” I’ve discovered that to be true as well, but I believe I know the answer to that mystery. I’ve discovered it takes all day to do what I could do in evenings after work. But now when evening comes, I’m too tired to do more. So, end result is doing full time during day what I previously could do in evenings.
Well, that may be true, but truth is it is a joy to serve Christ and a joy to be able to spend my days with family and neighbors and having the strength to do work needing done at home or church or volunteer work as working in local food pantry. Having my wife and children and grandchildren near to spend time with also provides great joy and fulfillment. But also blessing of writing and sharing these devotions and having them read and used in ministry not only in USA but in many other countries is such an amazing blessing and privilege God has handed to me as well. If they bless others as much as I am blessed in writing them, then I’m sure God is pleased.
Being thankful in bad as well as good circumstances is key to living a joyous Christian life. It is also key in being able to sustain a life of faithfulness and obedience to Christ call. But I, like you, am not able to sustain a faithful life without having the Holy Spirit in and guiding me every moment of every day. But I too find myself becoming neglectful of Him and the time I need to spend each day with Him. It is a mystery that I enjoy being with Him while it is so easy to neglect that time I enjoy with Him. Yet even retired, I still have life’s distractions hindering my time with Him. Yet we are called not to stop doing the tasks life demands each day, but to take Christ and His abiding Holy Spirit with us and fellowship with us as we do each day’s tasks. We can do that but not without conscientiously keeping our minds on Him as we do that. That takes practice and discipline but is very doable. I’m still discovering and practicing this as well.
The chorus “Count your blessings, see what God has done” is an important concept and command for us to practice. We tend to forget or take for granted all God does for us each day. But He so deserves our thanks but also our time fellowshipping with Him. Fellowship He desires of us and we desperately need from Him too.
Well, putting up notes to remind us to praise Him 7 times each day is a very good discipline or habit to start as a starting point. He deserves our praise continually so 7 times each day is not too many!
As I get older, I am discovering the challenge of being faithful to taking my medicine as prescribed. One pill I need to take 3 times a day, another 4 times a day, and 3 others once a day. A few years ago, I bragged of not needing to take any medicine, but that is no longer the case. Yet, the challenge of remembering to take my medicine forces me to set alarms on my watch. Putting up notes in places I regularly visit during day is another trick I have had to do. So similar ways of remembering to praise Him regularly is doable too.
I also have found praising Him a very good way to take my medicine too. How about you? What habits and regular duties do you do each day that could also be used to remind you to take time to praise Him at least 7 times each day. I am going to reflect and work more on this goal. How about you? AMEN!
Life is a wonderfully precious gift God has given us. We need to treasure that gift, enjoy that gift, and praise God who gives us life. AMEN!
“If we are praising Him continuously we’ll discover just how difficult it is to keep on complaining.”. Harold Adolph
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 217 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/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.
My hope and prayer is, my blog and devotional materials 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
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