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
Don't Abandon Your Dream
Dreams can die in the desert. That's the powerful lesson from Kermit the Frog's journey in the original 1979 Muppet Movie—and it might just be the message you need to hear today.
Remember when Kermit's Studebaker broke down in the middle of nowhere? His friends were counting on him, his dream seemed impossible, and quitting felt like the only sensible option. That moment of crisis—when Kermit's conscience appeared to remind him of his purpose—mirrors our spiritual journeys with striking clarity. We all face desert moments when our God-given dreams feel too difficult to pursue.
What makes these desert moments so significant is the profound truth that there are people on the other side of your obedience who need what only you can provide. Your dream was never just about you.
Today, consider what dream you might be abandoning in your desert. What purpose has God placed within you that feels too difficult to pursue? Take courage from Kermit's story and remember—just beyond your moment of crisis, new resources and companions may be waiting to help you complete the journey. Don't give up on doing good. Your harvest of blessing—and someone else's—depends on it.
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mac and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. Ok, when was the last time you saw the Muppet movie? I'm not talking about the Muppets Take Manhattan or the Muppet Christmas Carol. I'm talking about the original Muppet movie made in 1979. The very first one that had Kermit with his dream to go to Hollywood and to make a movie that would make millions of people happy. Do you remember that movie? It was a long time ago. I know Every one of the Muppet characters are in this movie, but it starts out just with Kermit deciding he's going to take this trip to Hollywood to fulfill his dream.
Speaker 1:So he gets his buddy Fozzie and they get an old Studebaker and they start traveling. As they're traveling, they're gathering friends, adding more and more to their car all the time, and soon the car is so full they couldn't possibly get anyone else in it. They all want to go to Hollywood and be part of seeing Kermit's dream come true. But then there's the scene where the Studebaker breaks down. They're out in the middle of the desert. They don't know what to do, they don't know where to go from that point in time. And Kermit has this epiphany moment for himself, this time, where he's wandering through the desert, feeling sorry for himself, feeling discouraged, wanting to quit, thinking all is lost and that he needs to go back home. And as he's talking to himself, walking through the desert, there is another Kermit that appears. It's like it's his conscience that starts to talk back to him when he's saying all the negative things. And so when Kermit says it was a stupid dream, anyway, I don't want to do it his conscience tells him it's not a stupid dream. There are still people that need to laugh and to smile and to be happy. And you can do it. Don't lose sight of it. Kermit goes oh, I can't, I can't get there. Look what I've done. I've disappointed my friends, I've disappointed myself. All my friends started to come along with me and be a part of this, and now we're broken down in the middle of the desert. We'll never get there. It'll never happen. We just need to give up and turn around and go back home. We'll start hitchhiking in the morning. Well, his conscience says no, your dream is still very, very important. There are people who need your dream to come true, because they need what your dream will give it's. At that point Kermit returns to camp to find a bunch of new friends with a bus that they can all get on and continue their trip to Hollywood and to fulfill his dream.
Speaker 1:That conversation between Kermit and his conscience is a lot like our walk with God sometimes. You know, god has placed ideas and dreams and purposes inside of us. We get these great ideas of what we can do and what we can be and what we can become. We want to sing in the choir. We want to teach a Bible study. We want to work with kids. We want to start a feeding program for the poor. We want to do some outreach ministry to be able to let people know about who Jesus is. We want to start a ministry that will help couples to be strong or help parents to know what it means to be parents and help to raise their kids. We want to do. We want to do. We have these dreams and purposes that God has placed inside of us and we start out so good and so strong, but somewhere along the way we run into a real rough patch where things aren't going the way they should and all of a sudden it's not as easy as it was before and we have to try to decide what we're going to do. That is the important time, the defining time of who we really are. Paul reminds us of this in the book of Galatians, chapter 6 and verse 9. He says let us not get tired of doing what is good, because at just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up.
Speaker 1:I once heard it said there are people on the other side of your obedience that need what you are going to do.
Speaker 1:The problem is we don't always understand or know who those other people are. But whatever we do in obedience to what God's asked us to do, there are people on the other side of that obedience that need that in their lives. It's not just about us. Nothing is ever just about us. It's about how we can impact other people and influence other people for Jesus Christ, and our greatest impact comes when we are consistently obedient to what he has for us. Can I encourage you not to give up on that purpose or on that dream, to continue to follow through with it, to work on it, because there are people on the other side of that dream, on the other side of that purpose, on the other side of your obedience, that need what you are about to do and what you are about to accomplish. Have a great day, 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.
