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
Be Kind, Change Lives
A single glass of milk changed two lives forever. That's the remarkable true story at the heart of today's meditation on kindness and its unexpected returns. This story today will encourage and challenge you. A small act of compassion might just set in motion events that will echo through your life for years to come.
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mac and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, in the fourth chapter and 32nd verse, he said Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God, through Christ, has forgiven you. Today, I want to focus just on the first part of that verse be kind to each other. And to do that, I want to share this story with you.
Speaker 1:There was once a young man who had taken a job going door to door to sell brushes with the hope of making some money to pay for his college education. For the last three weeks, he had spent almost 10 hours every day trudging from house to house throughout the town, knocking on doors, only to be rejected, often with some very harsh and nasty words and a very loud door slam. He had not even made one sale. Well, on this last day of the third week, the summer heat was very intense, exhausting both his physical strength as well as his will to continue. He was tired and hungry, with only one dime left in his pocket. He approached the end house on the street where he decided that he would ask for a meal. However, when I Love a Young Woman answered the door and greeted him kindly with a smile, he became flustered and instead of asking for the meal, he asked for a glass of water. She smiled at him again and as she turned away from the door, she thought he looked rather hungry. So she brought him a very large glass of cold milk. He sat on the step and drank it slowly and then asked how much do I owe you? You don't owe me anything, she replied sweetly. My mother taught us never to accept pay for kindness. He looked down at the empty glass and then back up at the young woman and said then I thank you from all of my heart. As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was also stronger. He once again felt hopeful, believing that something good was going to come his way.
Speaker 1:Many years later, that same woman became critically ill. The local doctors were completely baffled and they finally sent her to the big city where they called in a specialist to study her rare disease. Dr Howard Kelly was called in for a consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room and, dressed in his doctor's gown, he went in to see her. He recognized her immediately. He went back to the consultation room, determined to do his best to save her life, and from that day on he gave special attention to her case. After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr Kelly requested that the business office pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it then wrote something on the edge of the bill, and the bill was sent to her room. The woman held the folded bill in her hand, afraid to open it up. She was sure it was going to take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked and something caught her attention. On the side of the bill she read the words paid in full with one glass of milk signed Dr Howard Kelly. With one glass of milk Signed Dr Howard Kelly.
Speaker 1:God's Word tells us to be kind to one another, but there's even more than that Over in Proverbs 19, verse 17,.
Speaker 1:It says If you help the poor, you are lending to the Lord and he will repay you.
Speaker 1:You see, when we reach out with love and care to people who are in need, we're not giving to them, we're giving to God, and the basic principle of Scripture is that when we give to God, he will always pour back into our lives. Can I encourage you today to be kind to someone that you have never been kind to before. Help them in some way, do something for them, even speak to them words of encouragement, or maybe slip them $10 or $20 to help them out. Be kind to someone, because when you give to the poor or give to the needy, we are not giving to them, we are giving to God, and God will now work with that money in their lives, but he will also use that to become a blessing in our lives. I hope you have a great day, everybody. Be kind to someone, let God's love shine through you and we will talk again tomorrow. Thank you for joining us today, and I invite you to join us every Monday to Friday, right here at Starting Right, with Danny Mac.
