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
Soul Survival Kit
What happens when every external support is stripped away, and all you have left are the resources stored in your mind and heart? Danny Mac explores this profound question through the remarkable story of Major Daniel Whittle, a Vietnam War pilot whose life was literally saved by the Bible verses and hymns he had memorized as a child.
The turning point came during a violent monsoon rainstorm when the entire prison was plunged into darkness. As thunder crashed and rain pounded the building, Whittle suddenly recalled his 37th hymn—"Showers of Blessing," based on Ezekiel 34:26. The divine timing of remembering this particular song during an actual downpour became a powerful symbol of God's presence even in the most hopeless circumstances. As Whittle later wrote, "All this talk of scripture and hymns may seem boring to some, but it was the way we conquered our enemy and overcame the power of death around us."
Danny Mac challenges listeners to consider what they're storing up inside themselves for times of crisis. Are you memorizing scripture? Do you know the lyrics to songs that move your soul, whether traditional hymns or contemporary worship music? These aren't merely religious practices but survival tools for the darkest moments of life. Join the conversation and share what spiritual resources you're building into your life today. And remember to tune in Monday through Friday for more five-minute devotionals that will help you start your day right!
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. I'm one of those guys who can't remember a time in my life when we weren't going to church. We always did that as a kid and I'm grateful for a lot of the things that I learned and experienced during that time. But there are two things in particular that stand out to me. There are Bible verses that I know and can recite because I learned them as a kid. Of course they come out in the old King James Version because that's how I learned them as a kid. Of course they come out in the old King James version because that's how I learned them, and part of my problem sometimes now is I have to relearn them in some of the newer translations. But I'm grateful for learning the scriptures and I'm also grateful for the songs, the old hymns, that we sung in the church. My wife and I often watch a few different church services on the weekends and one of them they do a wonderful combination of some of the modern worship and they often bring in some of these old hymns. There's something comforting, something encouraging about the old hymns.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you a story this morning of how knowing the hymns and memorizing Scripture literally saved a man's life During the Vietnam War. There was a pilot, major Daniel Whittle, who was shot down over Vietnam and he spent over seven years in a North Vietnamese prison. He later wrote a book entitled In the Presence of Mine Enemies, where he shared a lot of those experiences. He talked about how brutally he was treated, how there was little food and often it was not anything more than just a bowl of pig fat. In the winters he was unbelievably cold and he spent much time isolated from other prisoners. He was often tortured without any particular reason, just it was his turn to be tortured. In the book he was asked how did you keep your sanity? His response was this I wanted to talk about God and Christ and the church, but in the camp which we called Heartbreak there was no pastor, there was no Sunday school teacher, there was no Bible, there was no hymn book.
Speaker 1:I completely neglected the spiritual dimension of my life, and it took prison to show me how empty life is without God, and so I had to go back in my memory to those Sunday school days in Tulsa, oklahoma. If I couldn't have a Bible and a hymn book, I would try to rebuild them in my mind, he says. I tried to desperately recall gospel choruses from my childhood and the hymns that we sang in church. The first three dozen songs were relatively easy. Every day I'd try to recall another verse or a new song, and one night there was a huge thunderstorm it was the season of the monsoon rains and a bolt of lightning knocked out the lights and plunged the entire prison into darkness. I'd been going over hymn tunes in my mind and stopped to lie down and sleep while the rains began to fall.
Speaker 1:The darkened prison echoed with wave after wave of water, and suddenly I was humming my 37th song, one that I had entirely forgotten since childhood. It was Showers of Blessing. There shall be showers of blessing. Showers of blessing we need. Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead.
Speaker 1:The enemy knew that the best way to break a man's resistance was to crush his spirit in a lonely cell. Howard wrote, in other words, some of our POWs, after solitary confinement, lay down in a fetal position and died. All this talk of scripture and hymns may seem boring to some, but it was the way we conquered our enemy and we overcame the power of death around us. That song there Shall Be Showers. A blessing comes directly from the book of Ezekiel, in the 34th chapter and the 26th verse. It says I will cause showers to come down. In their season, there shall be showers of blessing.
Speaker 1:We never know when we're going to have to draw from what we know inside of us to give us strength and to keep us sane. We never know how important those things are until they are absolutely needed. But when we do need them, we often really need them. We need to know God's scripture. We need to know the songs that we can sing.
Speaker 1:So my encouragement to you today is this Memorize Bible verses, get them inside of you, make sure that you've got them so that you know them, and don't forget to learn the words of the music that stirs you the most. Whether it be the old hymns or some of the new worship music, it really doesn't matter. But pick songs that will encourage you and will bless you, and make sure that you know how to sing them, even when you're all by yourself in the shower or driving down the road in your car. We are always strengthened when we worship God, both in the good times and in the really, really hard times. Be blessed, my friends. We'll 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.
