Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
What truly matters when everything is stripped away
What would you say is the most important thing in your life? A recent American university survey revealed shocking priorities: children first, followed by pets, cell phones, and—only in fourth place—spouses. Even more concerning, God didn't crack the top five. This five-minute devotional explores these misplaced priorities and offers a profound alternative through Viktor Frankl's remarkable story.
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Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mac. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax and let me help you start your day right. I recently saw a survey done by a university down in the United States where they asked people one question what's the most important thing in your life? Number one was their children. Number two was their pet, whether it be a dog or a cat or a goldfish or a bird. Number three was their cell phones and number four was their spouse. God didn't even make the top five. There's an old song that says looking for love in all the wrong places, and while those are not all wrong places, I think there are some priorities there that can get a little bit mixed up. I want to share a story with you this morning about a man who came to realize what truly was the most important thing in his life. I think you will enjoy it.
Speaker 1:During the Second World War, dr Viktor Frankl, who was a Viennese Jew, was interred by the Germans for more than three years. He was moved from one concentration camp to another. He even spent several months in Auschwitz. Dr Frankel said that he learned early that one way to survive was to shave every morning, no matter how sick you were, even if you had to use a piece of broken glass as a razor. You see, every morning as the prisoners stood for review, the sickly ones who would not be able to work that day were sent off to the gas chambers. If you were shaven and your face looked a little ruddier for it, your chances of escaping death that day were better. Their bodies were wasted away on a daily fare of ten and a half ounces of bread and one and three-quarter pints of a very thin, terrible-tasting gruel.
Speaker 1:They slept on bare-board tiers seven feet wide, nine men to a tier. The nine men shared two blankets together. Three shrill whistles awoke them every day for work at three am One morning, as they marched out to lay railroad ties in the frozen ground miles from the camp, the accompanying guards kept shouting and driving them with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. The man next to Frankel, hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, whispered If our wives could see us now. I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what's happening to us, frankel writes. That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and time again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said. Each of us was thinking about his wife.
Speaker 1:Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of morning was beginning to spread behind the dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. A thought transfixed me.
Speaker 1:For the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaiming as the final wisdom by so many thinkers the truth that love is the ultimate and highest goal to which men can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart the salvation of man is through love and in love. 1 Corinthians 13.13 tells us Three things will last forever—faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.
Speaker 1:Love is such a powerful and beautiful force. It will bind people together. It will give us strength and hope in the midst of darkness, and God's love for us is greater than anything we can even imagine. Romans 5.8 tells us that God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. It is what gives us hope and life, and our love for Him and for our spouses should be ours. Have a great day, my friends. We will talk again tomorrow, again tomorrow. Thank you for listening today and I invite you to join me Monday to Friday, right here on Starting Right with Danny Mac.
