RECOMMENDED READING: GENESIS 45:5 ; 50:20 “5 But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life…20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
COMMENTS: Have you ever wondered why God lets bad things happen to good people? Such questions usually come during times of personal hardship or suffering or tragedy. Truth is tragedy and hardship find its way into every family sooner or later. But it seems some families and individuals seem to experience more than their share of tragedy.
Well, scripture tells us that God causes the sun to rise on the evil and good and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous (Matthew 5:45) God is longsuffering and gives everyone many and every opportunity to repent and accept His gift of forgiveness and redemption. Even those who don’t seem to be given such an opportunity, God finds a way of doing so. Countless thousands of accounts of Jesus revealing Himself to Muslim people in countries outlawing evangelism confirm God finds a way when no way can be seen.
God spoke to Saul on the Damascus Road likely because He knew Saul would not listen to Gospel from anyone else so He came Himself to do so. Saul became Paul solely because Christ confronted Saul Himself and shocked him with blindness to open his spiritual eyes.
But even those who Christ confronts directly still have free will and option of continuing to reject Christ, but at their own peril. Refusing is still their option but consequence is solely in God’s Hands. He delays and tarries and continues to protect even evil people for a time because of His love and compassion even for their soles but assures us that His justice will be satisfied and those who insist on continuing in their evil ways will be judged.
History, especially biblical history recorded in scripture, repeatedly and consistently proves God is both faithful and just. He requires His people to be faithful to His commands and instruction and to be His Ambassadors to the pagan world. The Israelites were not privileged to satisfy their own wants and selfish desires, but were privileged to equip and direct them to tell the world about God and His faithfulness and Ways. They repeatedly failed by abandoning God and following pagan gods. The result was punishment and suffering until they repented and turned back to God. Even their judgment, however, showed the world and us more about God and importance of following Him. God can be ignored or denied or even mocked for a brief time, but God is God of all and His Will will prevail. To refuse or ignore or deny such is folly. Will we choose to be on His side, the winning side, or on satan’s side – the loosing side? Most don’t look at it this way, but when we refuse to follow God’s direction, the only other choice is satan’s way.
When we don’t like God’s way or timing or think He is late or abandoning us, just reflect on experiences of those before us. Reflect on the above scripture in Genesis and how Joseph’s brothers brought 12 years of suffering on Joseph and Jacob because of their evil deeds. They appeared to get away with their evil and Joseph saw no reason to hope for justice. But he remained faithful and God brought far greater good out of the evil his brothers did and even the option of redemption back to those same brothers.
So why did God let Joseph’s brothers go unpunished for 12 years while letting Joseph be punished unjustly for those 12 years? Well, consider how God was at working during those 12 years and miracles performed during great drought and insights given to Joseph and wisdom Joseph demonstrated. Consider how God waits on us patiently like Jesus described in the parable of the Prodigal. He is and remains faithful when we see His faithfulness but especially when we see no evidence. Realize He is still on the job and will not stop or quit.
Consider His perspective. Eternity in Heaven with Him is a far greater and lasting goal that make even years of hardship worthwhile. If you knew 50 years of suffering would make the difference between a loved one accepting Christ or being eternally lost, would you not gladly accept that suffering? Well, do you trust God enough to accept all He puts on your plate and in your life believing He is working not only for our good but for the good of our loved ones too.
But keep in mind, He loves both your loved ones and even those you don’t like or even are enemies to you. Corrie TenBoom encountered one of the Nazi guards while leading a revival crusade years after WWII ended. Anger and the pain of last suffering welled up in your memory. Her parents and sister were still gone and scares of her suffering were still deep and painful, but God compelled her to lead this repentant x-guard and x-Nazi to the throne of Grace too. She had to step aside and let God calm her spirit and so persuade her to do so, but she finally did just that, and that guard experienced God’s Grace and forgiveness and new life too.
Remember, “IT WILL BE WORTH IT ALL WHEN WE SEE JESUS!!” as a familiar hymn state. AMEN? AMEN!
If you don’t understand one of God’s moves in your life, be patient while you pray and wait for the purpose to be revealed.
“God never foreordains an evil event without a good purpose.
John Frame
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 501 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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