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 Lighthouse They Couldn't Reach
Have you ever experienced a moment where divine timing seemed too perfect to be coincidence? This episode tells the trie story of two Florida teens who experienced exactly that kind of extraordinary intervention.
Tyler Smith and Heather Brown, high school students from Christ Church Academy, found themselves in a life-threatening situation when strong currents pulled them away from shore during an attempted swim to a nearby island. As they drifted further into the Atlantic, their situation grew increasingly desperate. Linking arms in the water, they turned to prayer as their final hope.
This powerful story serves as the backdrop for a deeper exploration of prayer's role in our daily lives." True prayer transcends one-sided requests; it's an ongoing conversation where listening becomes as important as speaking. As one young mother facing pandemic-related hardships shared, prayer means "knowing that He hears, trusting His timing, letting go and letting God while balancing not just sitting around." It's active faith paired with patient trust.
Join us today for this episode, which was originally broadcast on January 18, 2022.
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. Back in early 2019, a couple of high school teens from Christ Church Academy, tyler Smith and Heather Brown, had decided to go out and hang around at Villano Beach in Florida. They decided to see if they could swim to this island. That was not too far offshore, but they thought they could probably get there. They were both pretty good swimmers, so they went in the ocean and they started out towards this island. What they weren't aware of is that the current between the island and where they were was rather tricky and rather dangerous, and before they knew it, they were being pulled away from the island itself and away from shore. They then saw a lighthouse that was nearby. They thought they could be able to swim to that, but it wasn't long before they realized that they weren't getting closer to it. They were, in fact, getting farther away from it and drifting farther out to sea. Knowing that they were in a helpless situation. They linked their arms, stayed together and they prayed Prayed that God would intervene somehow for them. They continued to float, drifting further and further out to sea for the next 30 minutes, when, all of a sudden, they looked up and were very surprised to see a boat sailing directly toward them. The boat had been on its way from Florida to New Jersey and a very sharp-eyed person on board saw the teens in the water and they came over to help them. The boat had been on its way from Florida to New Jersey and a very sharp-eyed person on board saw the teens in the water and they came over to help them. The name of the boat that came and rescued them it was the Amen. That's such a cool story.
Speaker 1:The Bible tells us in James, chapter 5, that if you're in trouble, you should pray. These teens did that, and they did exactly the right thing. They began to pray and believe that God would be able to help them when they didn't have any other answers. Prayer at times when things are going bad. We have to do that. We have to be praying and believing that God will be there to help us, first of all, because he is the only one that can help us. And secondly, because that's what we're told to do. But you know what it says over in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5? It says to pray continually. We need to have our hearts continually in communication with God, to seek God, to have our hearts open to Him. And we have to remember that prayer is not just a one-way monologue communication with God. Prayer is not just us telling Him what we want Him to do and how we want Him to do it. Rarely will God answer your prayers the way you tell Him to. But prayer is listening to God and letting God speak to us and encourage us and to lift us up and strengthen us when we need it. It's being able to hear His voice and being able to hear His direction as he leads and guides us through our daily lives. Psalm 17, verse 6,. I call on you, my God, for you will answer me, turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.
Speaker 1:Janine Green is a young lady that I've known since she was a part of the youth group that I ran many years ago. She's married now and has a family, and they, like many others, have been hit and are struggling with layoffs and difficulties as a result of this virus. She gave me the okay to share her post that she put on Facebook recently, because it fits right in with where we are today. With all the uncertainty in this season for our family, I find myself challenged to just keep praying, knowing that he hears, trusting His timing, letting go and letting God while balancing, not just sitting around Prayer in the good times and the hard times, waiting for that still small voice to just affirm it's okay, I got you Over.
Speaker 1:In Isaiah 40, 31, those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint, holding on to your promises and recognizing we need to actually accept them as truth, not just think on them.
Speaker 1:We need to be praying more than ever before. We need to be able to seek God's power and His working in our lives. We need to hear what he has to say to us and we need to be people in communication, learning and growing and believing in what God has in His work for us. So I encourage us all today to take our prayer and our need to God and then do what the Bible says and trust Him, believe Him, know that he will refresh us, he will take care of us, he will save us from disasters, he will give us comfort when we are hurting and we don't know which direction to go, and he loves us Always. He loves us and he will never forsake us. He will never leave us. Be blessed, my friends. We'll talk to you 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.
