Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. Colossians 4:6
RECOMMENDED READING: Proverbs 15:1-7 “A soft answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.2 The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly, But the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness.3 The eyes of the Lord are in every place,Keeping watch on the evil and the good.4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life,But perverseness in it breaks the spirit.5 A fool despises his father’s instruction,But he who receives correction is prudent.6 In the house of the righteous there is much treasure, But in the revenue of the wicked is trouble.7 The lips of the wise disperse knowledge,But the heart of the fool does not do so.”
COMMENTS: Anger generates energy and motivation to respond but seldom in a productive way, but we tend to respond when angry than when an opportunity to encourage others. I recently read about a man on vacation with his family who woke up early hearing the garbage man doing his job outside their cottage. He got up and watched him carefully and as quietly as he could collect each cottage’s garbage and move on. The man got dressed and went out and over to the garbage collector and complemented the man. That garbage collector was moved and said no one, including his boss, had ever noticed and commented on his work. They had a brief but memorable conversation that left them both encouraged and energized for the day.
Great communications are not always in inspired speeches in front of huge crowds nor require many hours of preparation and research with fancy words. Great communications that create permanent positive memories and change in others and ourselves come when we respond to the Holy Spirit’s nudging to share a word of encouragement or a listening ear to those we cross paths with during our normal day.
Stop and reflect on times of those nudgings when and results when we respond and regrets when we don’t. Also, reflect on those times you responded when angry and resulting regrets and times you refrained from responding and relief later when you saw harm that was avoided.
Great communicators who make an eternal positive impact on others are not just great pastors and preachers and evangelist and great leaders, but we desperately need more of these who are faithful to Christ’s calling.
An even greater need is for more great communicators who simply remain silent when angry and promptly respond with a kind attentive listening ear and a kind word of encouragement as they go about normal daily duties.
So let’s prepare this morning and every morning to be one of those great communicators. Prepare in prayer and with God’s Word fresh on our minds. With an open heart seeking and walking with the Holy Spirit. With a song on our hearts. Looking for opportunities God will put in our path to be a good listener and a good encourager to someone on our path, or maybe slightly off our path. There is likely nothing on our schedule that can’t wait nor is as important as God’s distractions will be. We might just discover we will accomplish more on our schedule as well and have more joy and sense of accomplishment at the end of our day. AMEN? AMEN!
“Without my Christian faith, I would have fallen apart and given up. But with Christ strengthening me, I had the will to go on…. My faith in God gave me hope.2” Rich DeVos
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 349 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 are, 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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