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
Four Generations and the Power of a Mother's Prayers
Originally broadcast May 15, 2023
A mother's prayers echo through generations, creating ripples of faith that often go unseen but never unfelt.Today's episode explores how mothers pass down spiritual heritage, often through the hymns they love.
To all the moms who've shaped their families through prayers, sacrifice, and faithful example: your legacy continues long after Mother's Day celebrations end. Listen through to the end of today's episode for a stunning acapella rendition by Home Free that captures the majesty of this beloved hymn, "How Great Thou Art."
Here is the link to Home Free's version of "How Great Thou Art"
Here is the YouTube link to today's song
https://youtu.be/tXQpDDcrN-w
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. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a brand new week right here on Starting Right. I hope you had a great weekend and I would like to give a special thank you to all the moms as we celebrated Mother's Day yesterday. I hope your family treated you extra special and showed you how much they love you and how grateful they are for you being the mom that you have been all the years. And with yesterday being that special day, I'd like to do something just a little bit different here this morning. Yesterday we got together at my mom's house. There were four generations of our family gathered together to honor their mother, their grandmother, their great-grandmother, and it was really fun to have everybody together like that.
Speaker 1:My mom just turned 89 years old. She is an amazing woman. She still lives in the rancher that she shared with dad, who passed away seven years ago, and for the most part she's well able of taking care of herself. She gets in the car to go to the grocery store, to the doctor when she needs to. But she does have someone come and help her with the gardening and a little bit of looking after the house every now and then. But for the most part my mom is still a going concern. I got to tell you our family loves to play card games and when we get together my mom continues to win more than her fair share. She is sharp, she laughs, she is wonderful and I love her very, very much. But my mother has also been part of providing for our family a tremendous legacy where the vast majority of her family love and serve the Lord.
Speaker 1:My mom prays, prays a lot. Every morning she gets up she walks around the house praying for her family and things she's concerned about in her neighbors and for everyone else around her. She prays for a long time. Every day she's praying. She's not shy in talking to us about what the Lord is teaching her or showing her or something that she's heard or read that has encouraged her. She continues to be a significant influence over her family. That she's been all of her life and I'm so grateful for her.
Speaker 1:Well, I did call her the other day and I asked her what her favorite hymn was, she couldn't give me an answer. She went through a whole bunch of them. Basically, it's any of the old hymns that the church sang for so many years. She still plays the piano and the first thing she sits down to play is always Amazing Grace, but she listed a number of hymns that just cause her heart to be filled with just a wonder and awe and a love for the Lord. I know there are many moms out there who are just like my mom. You love the hymns, you grew up with them, they encouraged you, they inspired you, and every day you spend time before God praying for your children, for your family, that they would come to know Him and serve Him, and that God would bless them and keep them safe. So, in honor of Mother's Day and all the moms who love the hymns, I dedicate this podcast to you, as today we look at one of the most powerful and beautiful hymns ever written. It falls just behind Amazing Grace in the number two spot of the greatest hymns of all time. It's the hymn how Great Thou Art. And today, mom, this one's for you.
Speaker 1:The hymn originated as a Swedish poem written in 1885 by Carl Boberg. The hymn originated as a Swedish poem written in 1885 by Karl Boberg. He was a sailor who had become a minister and wrote this poem that he called Ostorgut, which means Almighty God. Although the poem was published, it seemed to have been forgotten, until you jump ahead into the 1930s and somehow this poem that had been put to music had traveled around the world. An English missionary, stuart Hine, heard the song in Russian. He translated the song to English, he changed the music arrangement a little bit and he published the song as how Great Thou Art.
Speaker 1:In the 1940s, an evangelist, dr Edwin Orr, heard the song being sung by the native tribal people in Assam, india, and he brought it back to the United States. And then, in 1954, the song found its way into the hands of George Beverly Shea, who sang it nearly 100 times during the Billy Graham Crusade of 1957 in New York. In 1959, it became the official song for Billy Graham's weekly broadcast. In 1978, the performing rights organization ASCAP named this song as the all-time outstanding gospel song in America. This song has been recorded over 1,800 times in the last 50 years. It had its origins in this small Swedish town, written by this sailor-turned-lay minister, and it somehow made its way all around the world, becoming one of the greatest hymns of all time.
Speaker 1:Today I have an acapella version of the song I want to play for you. It's by the group Home Free. I'll leave you with a clip with it and then in your show notes there will be the YouTube link where you can listen to the whole thing. These guys are incredible and their version of the song is absolutely wonderful. You will love it. So today, happy Mother's Day, mom, and to all the mothers out there, we will honor you for all that you have done to help shape us to become who we can be, all the sacrifices you made for us, all the love you've poured onto us and all of the prayers you put up to God for us. We thank you and honor you. Have a great day. Everyone here's Home Free with how Great Thou art.
