You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance. Psalm 65:11
Recommended Reading: Psalm 65
65 Praise is awaiting You, O God, in Zion;And to You the vow shall be performed.2 O You who hear prayer,To You all flesh will come.3 Iniquities prevail against me;As for our transgressions,You will provide atonement for them.
4 Blessed is the man You choose,And cause to approach You,That he may dwell in Your courts.We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,Of Your holy temple.
5 By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us,O God of our salvation,You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth,And of the far-off seas;6 Who established the mountains by His strength,Being clothed with power;7 You who still the noise of the seas,The noise of their waves,And the tumult of the peoples.8 They also who dwell in the farthest parts are afraid of Your signs;You make the outgoings of the morning and evening rejoice.
9 You visit the earth and water it,You greatly enrich it;The river of God is full of water;You provide their grain,For so You have prepared it.10 You water its ridges abundantly,You settle its furrows;You make it soft with showers,You bless its growth. 11 You crown the year with Your goodness,And Your paths drip with abundance.12 They drop on the pastures of the wilderness,And the little hills rejoice on every side.13 The pastures are clothed with flocks;The valleys also are covered with grain;They shout for joy, they also sing.
COMMENTS: So many things God invented and created. Before creation, nothing existed except God. You and I can’t comprehend eternity, especially in the past, so we can’t comprehend what is was like to be God living from eternity past until time He started creating, so it is not productive to speculate what He did during those “years before He created time”. Likewise, since we are confined and constrained to live within constraints time holds us to, but we also need to realize God created time so is not constrained by time other than ways He chooses to. BUT HE IS IN COMPLETE AND TOTAL CONTROL AND WILL PROVAIL BECAUSE NONE ARE STRONGER OR WISER OR POWERFUL ENOUGH TO DO SO. SATAN STILL THINKS HE IS AND COUNTLESS AMBITIOUS LEADERS THINK THEY ARE AS HAS MANY FOOLISH MEN AND WOMEN SINCE ANCIENT TIMES PASTE WHO NOW ARE LONG DEAD AND GONE.
Even though God is all powerful and eternal, He is also a perfectly Good and loving God who loves and cares for us more than any other human, even our parents. Just imagine how doomed and terrible our lives and future would be if God was like us and especially if satan was our god. Satan is the source and manager of all evil we see in the world and his goal is to outsmart and defeat God and destroy all His followers. Satan doesn’t care about humans but loves to deceive and trick them into following him and become satan’s pawns.
Well, God uses time to give us a new day each 24 hours and a new year every 365 days after a period of darkness and rest so we have opportunity to start over or correct past days or years failures or errors.
Our God not only wants to forgive and heal us from past sins, but He wants to be in continual fellowship with us like He was with Adam and Eve before the Fall. There are some God was closer to that ideal than with most. Examples like Noah, Job, Daniel, Joseph, and Mary (mother of Jesus) to mention a few. So if we look at their lives and legacy, we soon realize they were not spared hardship and suffering but they were confident God was near and would take care of them and indeed did but in a way and best time and way. Faith helps us ask and believe God can and will do what we view as impossible but Trust helps us let go and believe His timing and Ways are best, so let go of ours
God promises to guide and help and ultimately take us safely to our eternal home and life if we put our trust and obedience in Him. So, as we begin a new year, our goals and dreams and obedience can only be meaningful and fulfilling and successful if we focus more on learning and obeying His Will, get closer to Him and His Word. If we associate with His followers and partner with them, and make our lives and words, and conduct more Christ-like and more like exampled to us by the early Christians of New Testament and like a few we can identify who we know who likewise stand out as being above the crowd of nominal Christians.
Well, this is a tall order and not possible on our own. We need Christ’s forgiveness first but we need the Holy Spirit available to every believer to help and strengthen and guide us in order to grow in our faith and lives.
So, let’s take some time to reflect on our lives and conduct pointing out the times and ways we failed to be Christ-like as well as times we did. Then seek His forgiveness for failed times and open our schedule and hearts to listen and follow those opportunities to give Him more influence and control of our time and lives and opportunities to share Christ’s love and Good News in 2021.
A new year can signal a new you. It provides an opportunity for fresh starts.
The psalmist recognized this when he praised God for crowning the year with goodness and abundance. Psalm 65, attributed to David, overflows with thanksgiving—for answered prayer (verse 2), for total forgiveness (verse 3), for God’s nearness (verse 4), and for His creative power in forming the mountains and seas (verses 5-7). And in verse 8 he said, “Where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy”.
As we begin a new year, remember that a new you begin with praising God for His new beginnings. He has so much in store for us! How could we not thank Him?
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year, but rather that we should have a new soul.
G. K. Chesterton
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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