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 Prayer That Won
What happens when a young boy faces a challenge without his father's help? In this heartwarming episode, we explore the remarkable wisdom of eight-year-old Gilbert, who teaches us all a profound lesson about prayer, resilience, and finding strength in vulnerability.
This powerful story reminds us that true victory isn't always about winning. Sometimes it's about having the courage to show up, do your best with what you have, and trust God for the strength to handle the results with dignity.
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. Have you ever noticed that God often uses children to teach important lessons to adults? Well, today we discover that truth one more time as Peggy Porter tells this story about her son, gilbert. She said my son Gilbert was eight years old and had been in Cub Scouts. Only a short time, during one of his meetings, he was handed a sheet of paper, a block of wood and four tires and told to go home and give it all to Dad. Well, this was not an easy thing for Gilbert to do. You see, his dad was not really receptive to doing things with his son. But Gilbert tried. Dad read the paper and scoffed at the idea of making a pinewood derby car with his young, eager son. The block of wood remained untouched as weeks passed. Finally, his mom said I stepped in to see if I could figure this out. The project began and, having no carpentry skills, I decided it would be best if I simply read the directions and let Gilbert do the work and he did. I read aloud the measurements, the rules of what we could do and what we couldn't do, and within days his block of wood was turning into a pinewood derby car. It was a little lopsided but it looked great, at least through the eyes of his mom. Gilbert had not seen any of the other kids' cars and was feeling pretty proud of his blue lightning. It was the kind of pride that comes with knowing you did something on your own.
Speaker 1:Then the big night came. With his blue pinewood derby in his hand and pride in his heart, we headed to the big race. But once there, my little one's pride turned to humility. Gilbert's car was obviously the only car made entirely on his own. All the other cars were a father-son partnership with cool pink jobs and sleek body styles made for speed. A few of the boys giggled as they looked at Gilbert's lopsided, wobbly, unattractive vehicle. To add to the humility, gilbert was the only boy without a man at his side. A couple of the boys who were from single-parent homes at least had an uncle or a grandfather by their side. Gilbert had mom, father by their side. Gilbert had mom as the race began, it was done in elimination fashion. You kept racing as long as you were the winner and, one by one, the cars raced down the finely sanded ramp. Finally, it was between Gilbert and the sleekest, fastest-looking car there.
Speaker 1:As the last race was about to begin, my wide-eyed, shy eight-year-old asked if they could stop the race for a minute because he wanted to pray. The race stopped. Gilbert hit his knees, clutching his funny-looking block of wood between his hands and with a wrinkled brow, he set to converse with his father. He prayed in earnest for a very long minute and a half and then he stood, smile on his face, and announced okay, I'm ready. As the crowd cheered, a boy named Tommy stood with his father as their car sped down the ramp. Gilbert stood with his father within his heart and watched his block of wood wobble down the ramp with surprisingly great speed, and it managed to rush over the finish line a fraction of a second before Tommy's car. Gilbert leapt into the air with a loud thank you.
Speaker 1:As the crowd roared in approval, the scoutmaster came up to Gilbert with microphone in hand and asked him the obvious question so you prayed to win, eh, gilbert? To which my young son announced. Oh no, sir, that wouldn't be fair to ask God to help you beat someone else. I just asked him to make it so I don't cry when I lose. It's true that children seem to have a wisdom that goes far beyond us.
Speaker 1:Gilbert didn't ask God to win the race. He didn't ask God to fix the outcome. Gilbert asked God to give him strength in the outcome. When Gilbert first saw the other cars, he didn't cry out to God. No, fair, they had a father's help. No, what he did is he went to his father for strength. Do you ever think that maybe we spend too much of our prayer time asking God to rig the race, to make us number one, or we take too much time asking God to remove us from the struggle, when we should be seeking God's strength to get through the struggle? Philippians, chapter 4, verse 13, tells us that I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Speaker 1:Gilbert prayed a very simple prayer and yet it spoke volumes to those present that night. He didn't pray to win, which would then hurt somebody else. He prayed that God would supply the grace to lose with dignity. Gilbert, by stopping the race to speak to his father, also showed the crowd that he wasn't there without a dad, but his father was most definitely there with him. Yeah, I think Gilbert walked away a winner that night with his father at his side. 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.
