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
Baseball, Rebellion, and the Making of Billy Graham
Ever wonder how childhood rebellion transforms into steadfast faith? The journey of Billy Graham offers a powerful dose of hope for anyone concerned about raising faithful children in today's challenging world.
As he was growing up, young William Franklin Graham was just a baseball-obsessed boy who despised everything about church. He couldn't stand the stillness required during services, hated missing baseball games with friends, and openly mocked preachers at summer Bible camp. In fact, young Will frequently declared there were two professions he would absolutely never pursue – preacher and mortician – as both seemed too focused on the afterlife when there was so much living to be done.
The key insight for parents today lies in understanding that truth properly planted remains, waiting for the right season to flourish. Don't live in fear of what your children will face in an increasingly secular world. Instead, focus on equipping them with the truth that will sustain them when they're ready to embrace it.
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, everybody. It's good to have you here with me today, and today I want to talk about our children and our grandchildren. When we see what's happening around us in our world every day, it's really not unexpected that we would find ourselves being concerned about what the world will be like for them. How can they ever build a relationship with God and stay on track with it in the world that they face today, which is in so many ways anti-God? But let me encourage you this morning that, instead of being overwhelmed with the fear of what might happen, let's take a hold of what God's Word encourages us with, and that's to teach our children, to raise them up in the way that they should go, because when they get old, they will not depart from it. I want to tell you a story today about a young man who experienced that he was brought up in the way that he should go, and he rebelled against it so strongly, and yet in the end it's the way that saved him. Listen, you will enjoy it.
Speaker 1:It seems there was once a young man by the name of Will Franklin. He grew up hating church and absolutely everything about church. He loved almost everything else in life, but to him church was nothing that he wanted to be a part of. His earliest memories were filled with the torture of going to church every Sunday, having to sit there quietly and behaving through the service. He just couldn't stand it and he hated everything about it. He hated the preaching, he hated the music, he hated sitting there and he hated not being able to go and play baseball with his friends, because that was one of his favorite things to do. In fact, will wanted to be a professional baseball player. It's been said about him that, until he discovered girls, baseball was Will's entire life.
Speaker 1:Apparently, will's childhood would have been completely carefree if it wasn't for one thing, and that was his mother always wanting him to go to church. Will's mother went to church every time the doors were open and she expected him to come with her. She wanted him to build a relationship with the pastor and with the other people of the church, but Will would have nothing to do with it. Will's family grew concerned about him so they decided to send him to a summer Bible camp. Will didn't want to go. In fact he did everything possible to keep from going, but finally his father laid down the law. Will was going to the Bible camp, so he reluctantly agreed to go, but he made it very clear that he was not going to like it.
Speaker 1:To relieve his boredom while at camp, will would often gather friends around him and mock the preachers who had been speaking. He would make fun of their styles and their tone of voice and how they would thump on the pulpit. He often said that there were two occupations that he would never fulfill. One was being a preacher and the other was a mortician. Both seemed to be pushing everybody into the next life and there was too much in this life to enjoy, like drag racing his father's car, which he did one night for a total of 300 miles. And then there was baseball. He absolutely loved baseball. Everybody said what a shame. He was basically a nice young man but so defined when it came to the important things like church. Will absolutely hated church and anything to do with the ministry. You know, it's really kind of funny how the Lord doesn't seem to care about our background, because if he wants you, he's got you, and for the rest of his life. Will would certainly agree that as a boy, he was really nothing special. He was just one of thousands of youngsters at the time who were trying to race Babe Ruth into the Hall of Fame. He was a youngster who'd made up his mind that he would do anything but preach. He was just an average young fellow who knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted to be a baseball player and, by the way, this baseball player's full name is William Franklin Graham, better known to most of us as Billy Graham. Yes, that, billy Graham.
Speaker 1:The verse I referred to at the beginning of this podcast is found in Proverbs, chapter 22 and verse 6. It says direct your child onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it. One of the things that we need to remember is that there may be a time between when they are our children and when they get older. There may be a time of rebellion or a time of wandering or just simply a time when we are very afraid for them and what's happening in their lives.
Speaker 1:But God's promise is that if we teach them, if we direct them, if we pour into their lives when they're young, that when they get older they'll realize the truth and they will come back to him, and then God can do some amazing things in their life. Maybe not to the scale of public impact of Billy Graham, but certainly to the scale of the change within the heart and the life of the person. That's what truth planted into children can do person. That's what truth planted into children can do. Don't live in fear for what your children will face, but give them boldness and strength to hang on to the truth, no matter what they face, and God will be with 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.
