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
The 5-Minute Reminder That You Matter
Have you ever felt like nobody loves you and everybody hates you? That childhood poem about eating worms captures those moments when rejection feels overwhelming and we struggle to feel accepted or valued. In today's heartfelt episode, I share the remarkable story of August "Augie" Kilpatrick that will touch your heart and perhaps change your perspective on divine love.
Whether you're feeling rejected, overlooked, or simply uncertain of your worth today, join me for this five-minute devotional that might just be the reminder you need - you are chosen, you are loved, and you matter profoundly to God. Subscribe to Starting Right with Danny Mac for more daily inspiration to start your mornings with purpose and perspective.
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. There's a poem I remember from back when I was a kid. It went Nobody loves me, everybody hates me. I'm going out to eat worms, big fat, juicy ones, a little short, skinny ones, I'm going out to eat worms. Now, that's a really gross little song, but it's also a very real depiction of how we feel sometimes when things just aren't going right, when we think everybody's angry with us and we're struggling to get through our day and it seems like bad stuff just keeps happening, nobody's happy with us and we don't even like ourselves. Unfortunately, many of us feel like that at different times and we really struggle with feeling accepted and feeling loved.
Speaker 1:I came across a story about a man named August Christian Kilpatrick. Everybody called him Augie. When he was only five, his father passed away and his mother, unable to care for her children, placed them in the Charleston Orphan House in Charleston, south Carolina. Every Saturday, prospective parents would come and the boys would scramble for their best clothes, wanting to look good, hoping that they would be chosen. The parents would look over their freshly scrubbed boys and would call one out by name Ricky, I choose you or Johnny, I choose you. And every Saturday Augie would hope to hear his name called, but it never was. Week after week, year after year, from the time he was five until he was twelve, augie watched other boys come and go, but he was never chosen. Finally, when he was twelve, his mother had scraped up enough money to take all the children out of the orphanage, that is all except Augie. He begged her to please take him home too, but for reasons that no one ever knew, she left Augie there. He didn't get out until he was 14. And by then he was an angry young man, a fighter, and, as you can imagine, he didn't feel very good about himself. He was the boy that nobody wanted.
Speaker 1:Augie went on to fight in World War II and after he got home he went to college on the GI Bill. And then Jesus got a hold of Augie and he committed his life to God. He felt a call into the ministry and went into seminary, pastored churches and then, in 1961, he became the first chaplain in Vietnam On Christmas Day 1969, Augie had one of those spiritual experiences that are hard to explain or define. He saw something. He saw a vision of a little five-year-old boy named Augie Kilpatrick standing in line, like he had stood so many times before at the orphan house, and he saw a father, father, god, reach down and scoop him up and put him in his lap and wrap his arms around him and say Augie, I choose you, I choose you. It changed his life and for the first time, augie Kilpatrick knew that he was chosen and he truly believed that God loved him and that he really mattered Over.
Speaker 1:In the book of Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 4 and 5, it says even before he made the world, god loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure. Through Jesus Christ, this is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure. You see, god does say to each one of us I choose you, you're my child, holy, blameless in my sight, and I have a plan and destiny for you, and I've adopted you to be my own.
Speaker 1:That really is what God says to each one of us, and he's saying it to you this morning. If you're feeling like nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I'm going out to eat worms. I want to remind you this morning that God loves you and that he's for you and that he's with you. I hope you have a wonderful day, my friends, knowing that you are loved and that God really truly cares about you. Take care and we will talk 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.
