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
Seeing God's Image in Everyone
What does it truly mean to be created in God's image? Today's reflection tackles this profound question through a moving story that might forever change how you see difficult relationships.
Jesus said "Are you really showing true love by only loving those who love you back? Even those who don't know God will do that."
Today, you will be challenged to reach beyond comfortable relationships. These sacred moments of giving without expectation might be where we most clearly reflect the Christ's love that we were created to express. Who in your life needs this kind of unconditional love today?
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. Genesis 1, verse 27 tells us God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God, he created them, male and female, he created them. Most of us grew up knowing that we are created in the image of God and yet sometimes it's difficult to understand exactly what that means. John Piper once said humankind is created to be a graphic image of the Creator, a formal, visible and understandable representation of who God is and what he's really like. The image of God is that in man, which constitutes Him as Him who God loves.
Speaker 1:I have a story today that was told by a young nurse who was having a difficult time seeing any kind of value in one of her patients. Eileen was one of her very first patients, a person who was totally helpless. A cerebral aneurysm had left her with no conscious control over her body. The nurse writes as near as the doctors could tell, eileen was totally unconscious, unable to feel pain and unaware of anything going on around her. It was the job of the hospital staff to turn her every hour, to prevent bed sores and to feed her twice a day what looked like a thin mush through a stomach tube. Caring for her was a thankless task. One of the other nurses had told her when it's this bad, you have to emotionally detach yourself from the patient. As a result, more and more Eileen became treated as a thing instead of a person.
Speaker 1:But the young student nurse decided she could not treat Eileen like the other nurses had treated her. She talked to Eileen, encouraged her and even brought her little gifts. And even brought her little gifts One day when things were especially difficult and it would have been easy for the young nurse to take out her frustrations on the patient. She was especially kind. It was Thanksgiving Day and the young nurse said to Eileen I was in an awful mood this morning, eileen, because it was supposed to be my day off and now I'm here. But I'm glad. I wouldn't have wanted to miss seeing you on Thanksgiving. You know it's Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:Just then the telephone rang and the nurse turned to answer it. She looked quickly back at the patient. Suddenly she noticed Eileen was looking at her crying. Big damn circles stained on her pillow and she was shaking all over. That was the only human emotion that Eileen ever showed any of them, but it was enough to change the whole attitude of the hospital staff towards her. Not long afterwards Eileen died. The young nurse closed her story saying I keep thinking about her. It occurred to me that I owe her an awful lot. Except for Eileen, I might never have known what it's like to give myself to someone who can't give back.
Speaker 1:It's not uncommon in our lives to have people around us that we just don't know how to love. Sometimes, when it's people like Eileen in our story, we don't know how to show love to them because they are not able to show it to us. But there are other kinds of people that are also difficult to love. Sometimes they've been hurtful to us or are a problem to us. They're difficult to like, they're almost impossible to love, and oftentimes we feel better when they're not around, when we just want to keep them as far away as possible. But we do need to remember that everybody is created in the image of God and God does want us to see people through his eyes.
Speaker 1:Luke 6.32 says Are you really showing true love by only loving those who love you back, even those who don't know God will do that.
Speaker 1:In Matthew 22, jesus was asked what are the greatest commandments? In verse 37, he says you must love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is equally important Love your neighbor as yourself. We are to love our neighbors, to give to those who are in need, to empty of yourself for others' benefit, and while that's not always easy, the rewards can be really tremendous. So today I encourage you reach out to someone who needs to know they're loved but may not be able to communicate back to you that they understand that or that they love you, or find someone that you find it difficult to like or difficult to love, and do something good for them today, and let God's love shine through you to them. 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.
