SPIRITUAL RESTORATION IN DARKNESS

                                          

When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches.  Psalm 63:6

COMMENTS: Life experiences often are shared and viewed in terms of seasons or in terms of day time vs. night.  Winter is a necessary time of rest and healing in preparation of springtime growth, but requires shelter and protective clothing from bitter cold and hostile temperature and winds.   Some struggle walking and driving through deep snow falls while others remove snow and obstacles in their path before traveling.   Preparation is a necessary part of managing success.

RECOMMENDED SCRIPTURE READING PSALM 139-11-12                                                 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall fall on me,”Even the night shall be light about me;12 Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,But the night shines as the day;The darkness and the light are both alike to You.”

Wasting valuable time is a common error we all fall prey to at times.  Wasting idle times or times of calm instead of using those times to prepare for crisis and challenges and battles of life.   Granted, we all know and have experienced temptations and disappointments and even loss and tragedy that came unannounced and unexpected.  How can we prepare for such even if we know they are coming? 

Well, some things we come slowly like aging of a loved one or planning future stages of life like education or career training or retirement or ….  Other changes come suddenly like an illness or accident causing long expensive recovery or even death. 

God provides the essential preparation and council with a proven track record from generations of followers before us.  The wise council of scripture and directly from the Holy Spirit reinforced by wise council of Christians in your life. Council of those in the church, including pastor and elders and piers in our church are all vital.   Only God knows the future – what is coming and preparation needed to manage and successfully survive or even thrive through it.

Consider how God Prepared Job for his dark time of tragedy and trial without full disclosure to Job of the outcome or purpose. Consider why God allowed David to be a fugitive fleeing Saul’s jealous anger for many years without knowing how long and why.  Do you have one or more experiences similar in duration? 

Jesus has assured us that He is always with us and will not permit suffering or temptation or trials to be more that or longer than we can bear because He is always with us and His Holy Spirit abides in and with us.  Consider how He provides Christian friends and support and brings a means of escape if we look for it.

Well, truth is that we often bear more than need to because:

  1. We resist seeking and listening to and then obeying His council early but, instead, only come to Him for help after our own ideas have failed.
  2. We wait on God but He seems to be taking too long, so venture out ahead of Him.
  3. We decide what we prefer to do and seek out council of others that supports our desires in order to justify those choices, but end up doing harm because God is not in them.
  4. We tend to measure success on wisdom of our choices or personal ability and wisdom in successfully evaluating and making good choices ourselves.  We even judge Christian maturity of ourselves and others in this way.

But  truth is that Christian maturity and growth should be measured instead on     how completely and consistently we seek out and follow/obey Him and wait on and wait for Him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Ask God to walk with you through the stages of your dark night. Remember who He is and what He has done for you.

“The greater your knowledge of the goodness and grace of God on your life, the more likely you are to praise Him in the storm.”  Matt Chandler

If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 593 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.

My hope and prayer are, my blog and devotional materials will become a source of encouragement

Published by donsdevotions

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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.

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