Choosing God

JOSHUA 24,14-15

And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” But the people answered him not a word.  1 Kings 18:21

Recommended Reading: JOSHUA 24:14-15  “14 Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord.15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

COMMENTS: Pastors and Sunday School Teachers and Church Youth Workers and even Parents and Grandparents have a huge responsibility and powerful influence on children and youth and young adults and ultimately the future of a country and beyond.  You likely have or are wearing one or maybe all these hats one time or another.   If you take your responsibility seriously, I’m sure you have felt joy as well as deep discouragement.  I know I have.  As I reflect on the years Arlene and I served as children’s and youth leaders at our church and struggles raising our two children, we too faced joy and fulfillment but also discouragements wondering if we were making any difference.   There were times the work was overwhelming and times we didn’t seem to have anything of interest to offer.  Then there were times when one would respond to Christ, making it all worthwhile.  But there were also times we would feel alone and empty but continued out of obligation and maybe even habit since didn’t know what else to do.  Have you gone through this cycle of highs and lows or even mostly lows?

As parents, we went through this same cycle too.  As our children grew and began stretching their independence muscles and exploring new freedoms and interests and relationships, that too became a time of joys and anxiety and disappointment too.   I often wonder why lawyers and doctors and engineers “practice” their professions charging large fees to do their work while workers and tradesmen and mothers and fathers labor at their jobs and duties?   I know, it is a play on works, but sounds like professionals practice while workers do.  Well, parenting is mostly trial and error, practicing parenting while doing it, right?   Parents drive themselves crazy trying to love and guide their children to become moral, decent, responsible, hard working adults.  Then to see their children resist, ignore, defy, forget those lessons and even their parent’s love.  But then again, today it is also all too common to see parents abandon their children or run away overwhelmed and unprepared or not up to the responsibility of raising their children, leaving grandparents or distant relatives, or even strangers and government agencies to raise their children.

God designed and prepared the family to be the unit He would use to populate and be in relationship with human beings in the world.  Adam and Eve became the parents and ancestors of everyone who has lived from their beginning until now.  The impact of their choices and those after them has rippled down through the centuries impacting each generation down to us and our children and grandchildren.  Their choice to sin opened the floodgates for us all to be so tempted and sin.  The bible is full of stories of how God impacted and redeemed families, parents and children – fathers and mothers – children and teens and young adults – old men and women – impoverished people and slaves – powerful kinds and queens.  Blessing those who followed Him and obeyed Him and bringing judgment on those who didn’t.

As I reflect and encourage you to reflect, what conclusions do we need to come to?  You and I don’t have a clue how to raise our families or effectively fulfill the responsibilities we are called to do.  We tend to either run and hide or hand off to others what we don’t want to do or feel unprepared to do. Those who do soon realize they need help.  Past generations more commonly had a network of grandparents and other relatives and a close connection to a church family and community to help.  Such is fortunately still visible but unfortunately less common today.  Why?  I believe it is because of parents and grandparents living without a relationship with Christ in their lives, rejecting the faith of their parents and grandparents.  Seeing the consequence of that rebellion in their children and grandchildren reveals significant consequences felt by society and well as by communities and even by surrounding families.  Such opens doors to evil and great hardship by the innocent and guilty alike.  

Such has been true even in bible times and today’s scripture reveals a “line in the sand” Joshua drew when preparing to lead the Israelites into their promised land.  They had to choose if they would worship and obey God or continue to follow the world’s pagan gods.  They knew the consequences of not following God but still were not fully committed to Him.  Joshua realized he could not make their choice for them.  All he could do is choose for himself.  To commit to lead his own family and other families willing to do so too.

Truth is, we can’t speak for or decide for others either, including our children and grandchildren either.  That is both freeing and disconcerting.  We have the responsibility of raising and teaching and guiding our children into a saving knowledge and relationship with our Creator – Lord – Savior.  But we must release them to choose for themselves.  As they grow and build families of their own, they must choose for themselves – either wisely or foolishly.  We can and need to be like the prodigal father – pray for and wait for and be available for them.  We need to encourage and support and be available.  Beyond that, releasing our children, our grandchildren into Christ’s care and loving arms, who loves and cares and desires them even more than we do.  Accepting responsibility means both embracing the duties and work we can do, but also letting go of what we can’t do or control.  That is freeing.  Freeing from frustration and regrets and worry but also freeing from a lot of burden we put on ourselves.  We also tend to make our burdens heavier than God intends for us.  We pick up burden He intends to carry for us if we allow Him in to carry it and be our partner in ministry and life He desires and intends to be. 

Choosing God means choosing Christ thru the door of a personal daily fellowship the Holy Spirit is available 24x7x365 to guide and lead us into. 

Letting go isn’t easy for any parent or grandparent and I’m still struggling in doing that, but age and experience and seeing how my two children have and are blossoming in faith and life gives me much reassurance and confidence Christ is faithful and I can be at peace trusting Him for greater things.   After all, if we can trust Him with our soul and eternal home, why would it be harder to trust Him with our souls of our children and all we care about and love?  It shouldn’t but seems to be harder. If you struggle with doubt or worry, pray with me seeking His help and insight and direction. After all, He knows and understands our worries because He knows we can’t see beyond present problems and concerns.  BUT HE SEES AND KNOWS THE FUTURE AND IS READY AND EAGER TO GUIDE US THERE IF WE ONLY TRUST HIM AND TAKE HIS HAND.  TAKE HIS HAND AND KEEP OUR HAND IN HIS!!  

“The essence of faith lies in the heart’s choice of Christ.”  Charles H. Spurgeon

If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 228 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/

My hope and prayer is, they will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.

 

Published by donsdevotions

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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.

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