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
Reverse to Move Forward
A Model A Ford crossed America and back without shutting off the engine—and did it in reverse. That jaw-dropping 1930 road trip is more than a curiosity; it’s a mirror for how we handle detours, dead ends, and the quiet tug to turn around. We unpack the stunt in vivid detail and draw a straight line to a deeper truth: sometimes the only way forward is a 180.
You’ll leave today's episode with a story you’ll retell and some encouragement, especially If you're feeling stuck, cynical, or stretched thin. Consider this your gentle nudge to check your direction, shift into reverse where needed, and chart a truer path forward. If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Where do you sense it’s time to turn back so you can move ahead?
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mack. 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. Right now I want you to think back to your late teens or your early 20s, and a friend of yours would announce loud and clear, Road trip. Now, as soon as we heard that phrase, we started to get excited because we knew that whether it was going to be just for a few hours or it was going to be a little bit longer than that, we were going to jump in a car, a bunch of us together, and we were just going to have a blast just driving, going somewhere. And quite frankly, it didn't really matter where. Well, today I want to talk to you about one of the most famous road trips in automotive history. It took place back in 1930. Charlie Creighton and Jim Hargis had a Model A Ford. They went to the Texaco Oil Company and said, We would like to drive from New York to Los Angeles and back without ever turning off the motor of our vehicle, and we want you to sponsor us. The Texaco executives thought about it for a few moments and then he said, Tell you what, I'll make you a deal. If your vehicle lasts more than 500 miles, we'll underwrite the entire trip. So on July 26, 1930, the two boys jumped into their model A Ford and began their trip across the nation from New York to Los Angeles. All along the way they never turned off the engine. They took turns driving, and by the time they got to LA, it was August thirteenth. And by that point in time, the car had been running for four hundred and fifty six hours. That's nineteen straight days. But the car had handled the trip well, and the Texaco insignia on the doors of the old Ford had garnered the nickname The Star. Reporters were amused to learn that the pair had been arrested in Pennsylvania for creating a public disturbance, and there was also very strong evidence that the skunk that they had hit in Ohio was very unhappy about it. Now the return trip was underway, and that finished on Sunday, september seventh when Jim and Charlie drove into New York City, and for the first time in forty-two days the engine of Charlie's old Ford was turned off. Texaco officials were there, they congratulated Charlie and Jim. Photographers were there to take their pictures. It was a momentous occasion. What was even more momentous is that Jim and Charlie drove their vehicle from New York to Los Angeles and back in forty two days, averaging eleven miles an hour or eighteen kilometers an hour to those of us who deal with metric. And they did it in reverse. You heard me right. They drove backwards from New York to Los Angeles and back without ever turning off their engine. For most of our Christian lives, we hear about the need for us to look ahead, to push forward into what God has for us, to the direction God wants us to go. But there is a great benefit and need for us to sometimes look backwards as well. Sometimes looking backwards is how we're going to get to go forward. Revelation chapter two, verses four and five, Jesus is speaking and he says, I have this against you that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen and repent, and do the deeds you did at first, or else I'm coming to you, and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent. There's two key sections of those two verses. The one is the last word there where it says repent. Repent means to change direction and you go the other direction. It's a 180-degree turn. In other words, start going backwards. Start going away from those things that are wrong and go the other direction completely. The other part that's important is in the phrase, do the deeds you did at first. Not only are you to stop going the direction forward that's the wrong direction, you turn around and you go back and you find the deeds you did at first that were right, and then you can move ahead again. With what we face in our lives, we need to know there's times where we need to go back to the foundations of our faith. What is true, what is right, what is strong, what we believe about God, what we believe about morality, what we really need to know about people and God's plan for our lives, and then we can move ahead. And we can have a miraculous story. Maybe not one that will be famous in automotive history, but one where God will look at us at the end of our lives and say, Well done, my good and faithful servant. 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 Max.
