Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life. Matthew 6:25
RECOMMENDED READING: Philippians 4:4-9 “4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice.And the God of peace will be with you.”
COMMENT: Our emotions naturally tend to control our thoughts and word and actions. When we’re angry, we tend to look for ways to find fault with others and actually look for excuses to release our anger with hateful words or actions. Our emotions need someone or something to blame, especially when there is no way of accessing the source of our anger. Injustice towards us or to those we care about causes anger in us. Obstacles to completing tasks or reaching goals can cause anger. When we solely depend on our own talents and abilities and strength, we should expect failure to be common and for obstacles to be unmovable.
Sure, most obstacles we encounter are easily removed by ourselves and we accomplish goals on our own every day, or do we? Where do you think your abilities and health bodies and minds came from? We deny God and work He does when we ignore Him. We enable ourselves to make wise choices and add His strength to ours when we turn to Him, open ourselves to Him, and follow His council and will.
Imagine planning a cross country trip. A friend offers you their car to make the trip but you decide to walk instead. When starting the trip you quickly discover trip is taking longer and is less enjoyable than you anticipated. As the impossibility of reaching your destination on time begins to overwhelm you, anger and blame begins to dominate your thinking, even blaming your friend for not talking you into using his car.
Well, this example seems so ridiculous but don’t we treat God the same way. He offers His resources as help to us. He offers a personal relationship with Himself to council and guide and inspires us as well as providing strength and wisdom to enable us to achieve goals. Well, good parents are not always appreciated by their children nor do their children always agree with their choices.
We do not always agree with goals and methods and timing God gives us either. As much as we want to be right, the sooner we admit God is always right and to resist or deny doing God’s will puts us on the wrong side, truth is we need to humble ourselves and simply obey Him, like it or not.
Will we let our emotions control us or will we learn to think logically and make our minds control our emotions? How much harm do we do and how much good do we fail to do simply because “we don’t feel like it”? How many harsh words do we later regret because we let our emotions direct our minds? If we reflect honestly, we will discover there was a brief time prior to action when we chose to follow our emotions but felt a nudge or sense of conscience telling us not to respond in that way.
You have heard it said to count to 10 before responding with anger. How many crimes or broken relationships or other society problems could be solved or eliminated if everyone would “count to 10” before acting out of anger. Well, I’m sure that trick won’t work everywhere and some may need to count to 1,000,000 before that would work. But if everyone would seek and follow Christ’s council recorded in scripture and seek a relationship with Him, imagine what a positive difference that would make in the world. We can’t change other’s minds but we can be a positive example and a positive influence on others.
Prayer is a tool available to all of us and we should not take it lightly nor take lightly its impact. Prayer impacts us powerfully so we are more open and aware of opportunities God gives us. Prayer also, in ways we can’t understand nor know, impact options God has to do miracles in the lives of others and, yes, to us.
Miracles are defined as being rare and unnatural changes done by a divine being. We then judge regular miracles like birth or the body’s ability to heal or a life change for the good as being natural and not miracles.
I, however, believe God does miracles every day and the most common miracles are those He does the most often. He loves to create life and He loves to transform lives. He loves beautiful sunrises and sunsets. He loves clear skies at night showing the vastness and majesty of the stars. He loves to enable us to see in color and stand and walk and talk and reason and breathe and …. The list goes on.
I challenge you and myself to look each day for God’s miracles and seek His council on how to enjoy and use these miracles for His honor and plan. Romans 8:28 reminds us God uses good and even evil for our good, even evil actions intended to harm us God will transform to bless us if we trust and follow Him. So let’s begin, ok? If we do, I am confident worry will fade and faith will replace it. AMEN? AMEN!
If you are tempted to worry about anything today, commit it to God with thankful prayer. And let His peace guard your heart and mind.
“Worry is an indication that we think God cannot look after us.” Oswald Chambers
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 380 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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