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
Uncle Gene's Trumpet: Why It's Never Too Late to Learn
What hidden talents are lying dormant within you? Uncle Gene's remarkable story might just inspire you to find out. At 86 years old and battling cancer for over a decade, Gene decided it was time to learn to read music and expand his trumpet-playing abilities beyond the limited songs he knew from his army days."If I don't start now," Gene reasoned, "a year from now I'll be 87 and I still won't know how to read music.".
No matter your age or circumstances, God has placed abilities within you that remain untapped—gifts that can bring joy not only to yourself but to everyone around you. What might you learn today? Your new adventure in learning could become the channel through which God's love shines brightest in your life and community.
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. When was the last time that you learned to do something? Just for the fun of it? In fact, let me ask it another way what have you learned in the last five or ten years? Just for the fun of it? I know there's some of us that are going to say I haven't learned anything. I've thought about it, maybe, but I've not really done it. There are some that will say well, I wanted to learn painting and I bought the paintbrushes and I bought the canvas, but after the first try I quit. Well, at least you tried. Well, I was sent a story about an uncle by the name of Gene. I want to read it to you today because it's really quite fun. Uncle Gene is really quite a character. He's always engaging his church and community and family in fun and in unexpected ways. Gene's grandchildren especially love whatever he has in store for them, whether it's woodworking or some home improvement projects or playing board games on the floor. They never know what to expect. Well, gene has decided he's going to learn something new. Back when he was in the army he played the bugle, but he never learned to read music. So he is extremely limited as to which songs he can play, and Rivoli is only acceptable so many times amongst the children and family. But last year he decided to take trumpet lessons so that he could learn to read music and start to play more songs. Uncle Gene is 86. It doesn't matter. He's still engaged in what is important in his life. And there he sits out in the garden shed hour after hour each day practicing his fingering on the three valves, working on his breathing and learning how to read music, while his family watches from inside the house and just marvels at what he's doing. Gene said he figures this is as good a time as any to work on expanding his musical experiences. Gene has been battling cancer for over a decade and has a variety of other health problems. But of his trumpet playing he says if I don't start now, a year from now I'll be 87 and I still won't know how to read music.
Speaker 1:Gene is one of these guys who is so filled with the joy of life that it impacts everybody around him. He's always looking for something fun and for new experiences and is willing to take some chances with his own abilities and skills to see what he can do and see what he can become. But the beauty of it all is that it impacts his family and his community so greatly that he is able to show the peace and joy of God in a way that very few others can. Well, many of us get wrapped up in our emotions about the future and joy of God in a way that very few others can, while many of us get wrapped up in our emotions about the future and what's going on and politics and all these other things, gene has separated himself from all of that so that he can enjoy life. And Jesus said that he came that we might have life and have it to the full. Well, gene is determined to reach out and to get a hold of that.
Speaker 1:There's some things here that we can learn from Gene. It's always good and exciting to be able to learn something new, and God has placed within each one of us abilities. I don't believe that any of us ever use all of the abilities and talent that God has given us. There's always more there, whether you are 20 or 60 or 80, it really doesn't matter. I believe that there are abilities within us that we have not tapped into yet that God can use to both bring joy to us and to the people around us. So today I want to just leave with you Proverbs 18.15.
Speaker 1:Wise men and women are always learning. What are you learning? What are you learning not just for you, but you're learning so that you can share it with other people. It may be some intellectual learning, it may be a skill learning, whether it be woodwork or knitting or baking or something. But let those skills and those gifts that God's given you grow within you so that you find joy and peace and you're able to share that joy with other people around you, especially your families and your church. Let God's love shine through you. I hope you have a great day, my friends. Enjoy it, have some fun with it, try something new that you've never done before, and let God encourage you and bless you and help you discover those hidden talents and gifts that are still inside of you. Have a great day, my friends. 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.
