Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28
Recommended Reading: Deuteronomy 34:1a, 5a –“ Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land … So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab”
COMMENTS: It is a wonderful experience when God provides a dramatic healing from disease or blesses with an open door to a new job or marriage partner or new child or grandchild or ?? When God answers yes to our prayers, it is a wonderful time of praise and gratitude expressed towards God and for celebration. Take some time to reflect on such experiences. A noteworthy example for me was God’s answer to a 3 year prayer for a Born Again Christian spouse. God answered that prayer through a mutual friend who didn’t know either of us had been praying this prayer but was who God compelled to plan for us to meet. The first attempt by this friend was one year after I began praying but meeting didn’t happen until 2 years later. Why? Well, we have had 42 years to debate that but truth is God needed to prepare us both and He did. In our case His answer was “soon” or “not yet.”
There were a number of times during difficult situations at work when I prayed for God to call me into ministry because I felt as though I was not making a different at work and work I was doing was not important in His service. He said “No, if you can’t serve me where you are, why do you think you will as a pastor in a church?” That answer changed my heart and attitude and thinking. The next 20+ years became an opportunity to live and work and interact with an attitude and integrity and humility and compassion and even sense of humor that gave me many opportunities to witness and pray with a number of individuals I would never have met or ministered to outside the connections my job required and gave me. His answer was yes to a better response to my prayer than I was asking for.
Can you recall times God answered NO to your prayers? How about times He said “Not Yet”? It is good to reflect and discover how God uses no or not yet to prepare us or others for a yes answer, or to prepare a better answer than the one we asked for. We should remind ourselves He knows and develops much better answers than we can imagine. Keep in mind He is infinitely wiser and intelligent and insightful than us, but He is also including impact on others and their impact on us by each response to our prayer He considers. No wonder His response sometimes is “No” or “Not Yet” sometimes or even often. It is probably more amazing when He does say “Yes” immediately after considering all the other options. Learning patience and enough faith to completely trust His decision and timing is a lifelong challenge and journey of growth for every Christian, especially me. How about you?
Well, we are in good company because many well known patriarchs and matriarchs from Old Testament times struggled with God’s answers too. Joseph enduring rejection and slavery in a foreign land away from family and unjust prison time before God revealed His answer and miraculous path to His God planned purpose. Moses endured 40 years of exile and later 40 years of wilderness wondering and then denial of entry into promised land. Moses’ response for God’s refusal to let Him into promised land because of one act of disobedience (Deut. 32:51) did disappoint Moses but Moses knew God knew best and submitted without protest to God’s decision. His love for and trust in God had matured through the 120 years of life and especially the 80 years of walking with Him in faith and obedience.
Even Jesus prayed for the Father to spare Him the cross and burden of bearing our sins He was about to endure, but then submitted to the Father’s decision that His sacrifice was the only way for our salvation. Jesus knew that but needed to ask.
Today when we pray, we are praying to the Holy Spirit and to Christ and to the Father. The mystery of the Trinity is beyond our comprehension. They are One God since all 3 think identically and are 100% in sink and agreement together even though the Holy Spirit focuses on directing and guiding and counseling and empowering and inspiring each of us toward honoring and worshipping and praising and loving Christ. Then Christ, as our redeemer and Lord intercedes to the Father. But the fellowship and relationship we have with Christ through the Holy Spirit included all Three of the God Head. You say, I don’t understand that! Well, I don’t either, so we each likely have a different way of describe our limited understanding of Trinity and God. So we can disagree and still have a genuine growing relationship with the same Triune God. So best we can do is recognizing we both have so much more to discover about God, who we both know and love. But when we both pray and both receive yes and no and not yet answers, we both can believe God is worthy of our love and trust and obedience. We both can agree on responses that are from God because those responses agree with God’s character and commands and supporting scriptures in Our Bible.
I am reminded of the statement “God either calms the storm or calms us”. He either removes the danger or leads or even carries us thru the danger. He either defends us or takes us home. No matter how He chooses, we always win when we place our trust in Him. AMEN? AMEN!
PRAYER: Dear Lord, help me to deal with the times You tell me “No,” and to continue trusting You and Your love. Amen.
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 391 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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