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
God's Rest Stop for Worn-Out Warriors
Ever felt completely drained - spiritually, emotionally, and physically? That moment when you're simply tired of the stress of being you? You're in good company. Today we dive into the fascinating story of the prophet Elijah, who, fresh off a spectacular victory against the prophets of Baal, found himself running for his life and collapsing in exhaustion under a desert tree.
What strikes me most about this biblical account isn't just Elijah's vulnerability, but God's response to it. There's no rebuke for his fear or lack of faith after witnessing such divine power. Instead, God sends an angel with the most practical gifts: food, water, and permission to rest. The spiritual prescription for Elijah's burnout wasn't more ministry or greater faith—it was simple nourishment and restoration.
Take a moment today to assess your own spiritual and emotional reserves. Are you running on empty? Perhaps the most spiritual thing you can do right now is rest. I'd love to hear how God has met you in your moments of exhaustion. Subscribe to Starting Right for more daily encouragement, and join me again tomorrow as we continue exploring practical wisdom for living with purpose and peace.
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mack, 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. Good morning everyone and welcome to another day. Hey, have you ever felt like you're just tired with the stress of being you? I think most of us have at some point or another. Today I want to talk about a fellow from Scripture who was exactly like that. His name happens to be Elijah. We're going to pick up his story in chapter 19 of the book of 1 Kings, but we need to remember the setup here as we get to it. Elijah had just won the battle on Mount Carmel with all of the prophets of Baal, and those prophets were now dead, because God had just sent fire down from heaven to receive Elijah's sacrifice, whereas the prophets of Baal could get nothing to happen with their gods. But now in chapter nineteen, starting in verse one, it reads this way Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, May the gods deal with me be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them. Elijah was afraid and he ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it, and prayed that he might die. I have had enough, Lord, he said, Take my life. I am no better than my ancestors. Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep. An angel touched him and said, Get up and eat. He looked around and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and then lay down again. The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you. So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he travelled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God, and there he went into a cave and spent the night. Well we can sometimes criticize Elijah for being afraid of Queen Jezebel when he had just seen God bring such a tremendous victory up on Mount Carmel. I think most of us can understand how we react when we are exhausted, when we're tired, when we're under pressure. It's at those times that we are generally far from our best, and we need to have something refresh us on the inside. We will never be able to produce results outside of us when the inside of us is weak. And Elijah had just spent a tremendous amount of physical, emotional, and spiritual energy in his battle on Mont Carmel. And now he was drained inside. We can get to that point too, where we have been giving out to others, we've been pouring into other people, trying to touch them and impact them in some way. We've been serving our family, we've been serving our community, we've been serving our church. And we just get drained on the inside, and we just get tired of being who we are. Can I give you three quick things this morning that will help all of us when we're at that place? First of all, we need to keep our proper perspective in those moments. It's not about us, it's about what God has for us. We need to be able to seek Him first in all the things that we do. Secondly, we need to remember that our walk with God is a journey. It's not about being great in every moment, but it's all about having a life of faith. David is known as a man after God's own heart, and we know how badly he messed up in his life, but those moments did not define him. It was his life that defined him. Thirdly, we need to make sure that we preserve some strength in us, that we don't use it all up too fast. And I'm talking about emotional and spiritual and physical strength, all of those things. If we use it up, we need to take time to get it refilled and refueled within us before we go on. Otherwise, we will step out and we will feel defeated and struggle, and a sense of failure and negativity can overcome us. So today, my friends, I encourage you with this. Let's learn from Elijah, who obeyed God, did everything God had told him to do, but he still got tired and depressed, and he needed to be refreshed. And I encourage you this morning, if you need to be refreshed, you take some time to do just that. Step back from what you are pushing into and let God refresh you. Don't let yourself get to the point where you're just tired of the stress of being you, but know that in that place at that time, that's when God will come and will minister to you the most and will give you the strength that you need. Have a great day, my friends. We'll talk again. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.
