The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it. Proverbs 10:22
RECOMMENDED SCRIPTURE READING: 1 CORINTHIANS 4:1-5 “ This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. 2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. 3 I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent.It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God..”
COMMENTS: January is a good time to put some thought and prayer to stewardship. January is a good time to reflect on all God has blessed and provided to us over past year, realizing all we have is His anyway and we are only stewards of his possessions for a few years. Everything we have must be given us when we die and passed on to others.
As I reflect over the past 40+ years of marriage and approaching 50 years of working for a paycheck, I begin to realize just how much God has given me and entrusted me to share. To share with my wife and children. To share with my church. To share with other ministries as an outreach and partner in ministry. To share as a love offering back to Him. To share instead of spend and consume on myself. But consume I have, wasting much on selfish desires and wants. But in spite of that, God has still enabled and guide me during my early years, and Arlene and I during our 40+ years of marriage, to be committed to tithe faithfully and then give beyond the tithe to the work and ministries God has instructed us to.
I confidently believe God has expanded His blessings to us because of this choice and commitment and continues to do so. God has empowered us to be free of debt and free to be generous. The joy of giving and joy of sharing, we have discovered, is far greater than the joy of possessing.
So as we continue to journey into our “Golden Years” of weakening bodies and greater dependence of others younger and stronger than us, we see the importance of seeking and following God’s instruction to be even more important. Important so we leave a legacy of example and provision that will equip and empower and energize God’s work in others who will live beyond us. Well, spending money on our needs is still necessary and to be expected, but spending as well as giving while seeking His council and wisdom is still vital for us because we still are vulnerable to foolish choices because we are still living in a fallen, satan influenced, world.
You and I are stewards of money and other material possessions. But we are also stewards of time and health and our bodies and our children and our marriages. We are also stewards over our local church and ministry. I believe God wants and expects us to know and be disciplined in consuming and sharing all the resources He provides for us and not just money and material resources. Even friends are a resource we can consume to meet just our own needs or a resource to share and take care of.
But we also need to realize God, as our source, is not a possession to consume for our own selfish wants but we are a resource to Him. We are His resource that He cares for and uses, not the other way around. It is humbling to realize this, but truth is He is God and in full possession of us and everything we have, like it or not. BUT THE WONDERFUL NEWS IS HE LOVES US AND WANTS TO CARE FOR US IN A FAR BETTER WAY THAN WE COULD EVEN IMAGINE DOING FOR OURSELVES! It is just some much different that we would choose alone.
Stop and reflect for a time how God has guided you in past and consider some choices you would have made without His input and how much different that path would have taken you. Also consider a path you did just that and how that path might have changed if you had allowed Him to guide you.
I too have some poor choices to reflect on with regrettable results, but fortunately most of the big choices with potential for greatest consequences, I did seek and follow His council. But also fortunately, He was there to prick my spirit when I was vulnerable to poor choices. One such time was when making some speculative investments, as a young husband and father, hoping to increase retirement fund faster than God willed. Result was a substantial loss of savings. But God taught me to invest more wisely and avoid any “get rich quick” speculation. You see, He has shown me those “get rich quick” investments were inspired by selfish greed and not by His investment for the future plan He desired from me. So how could He bless such choices? That lesson has served m and my family very well and so glad I chose His path instead of continuing to follow mine. Looking back, I realize if my goals of that time had been realized through those speculative investments, the greater wealth only would have tempted me to harmful spending and indulgences that would only have pulled me from the relationship with Christ I needed so much then and cherish and need even more today.
Think of all you have and all you are today. Consider how you can spend your life today so that it brings glory to God.
Stewardship is what a man does after he says, “I believe.” W. H. Greaves
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 359 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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