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
Pray First, Aim High, Stay Focused
A single choice can feel impossible when fear, urgency, and noise pull in every direction. We share a vivid story of a farmer facing empty cupboards and a shrinking list of options, then trace the unlikely path to abundance through three simple steps: pray first, aim high, stay focused. What begins as survival turns into a blueprint for clarity, showing how obedience can outrun panic and how wise attention can open doors you could not force on your own.
You’ll leave with practical ways to apply the pattern to your day: a short prayer that invites wisdom, a clear principle to aim at, and a simple way to reduce distractions so you can act with courage. Whether you’re choosing a next step at work, resolving tension at home, or facing a change you did not plan, this approach offers peace and traction. If this message encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs clarity, and leave a quick review so others can find these five-minute resets.
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. There was once a farmer who had a family, but he had nothing left to feed them. The crop had been bad that year, the animals had to be sold to try and allow them to survive, but now he found himself with nothing. He prayed to God, Lord, I need some help to feed my family. Lord guide me. He went to the cupboard, took out his old rifle and the three shells that he had left, and he decided he was going to go out and find something for dinner. As he went down the road he saw a rabbit. He carefully lined up the rabbit and shot at it, but he missed it. He said, Thank you, Lord, for the two shells I have left. Help me to be a better shot next time. He walked a little further and he saw a squirrel. He fired the shot at the squirrel, and the squirrel jumped just before the shot came, and so he missed the squirrel as well. He said, Dear Lord help me, I have one shot left and nothing to feed my family. As he went farther, he saw a wild turkey in a tree. He had only one bullet. But a voice spoke to him deep inside and said, Pray first, aim high and stay focused. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a deer come into the clearing just beside him. The deer meant food for weeks and not just for a day or two. He brought the gun down and he aimed at the deer. But then he heard something at his feet and he looked down and he saw a rattlesnake between his legs about to bite him. So naturally he brought the gun down to shoot the rattlesnake. The voice said to him again, I said, pray, aim high, and stay focused. So the man decided to listen to the voice. He prayed, then he aimed the gun high up into the tree and shot the wild turkey. The bullet went through the turkey, bounced off the rock cliff behind the turkey, and ricocheted down, killing the deer. The handle fell off the back of the old gun and hit the snake in the head and killed it. And when the gun went off, it knocked the man backwards into the pond that was behind him. When he stood up to look around, he found he had fish in all of his pockets. He had a deer and a turkey ready to eat. And the snake was simply dead because the old man listened to the voice of God. Pray first, aim high, stay focused. How do we deal with indecision? We always pray first. Prayer is that communication with God. It's not just us talking to him, but it's making sure that we let him talk to us and we hear what he has for us. He is able to place his wisdom into our lives, and wisdom is the beginning of all of the answers to every question that we have. So we pray first. We aim high, we look up and we see what God's doing and where he wants to take us. And we press towards the direction that God sets for us, not what we set for ourselves. And then we stay focused. We stay focused on what God has said, and we don't allow ourselves to get distracted by all of that extra noise that's going on around us. We don't let nasty people, bad reports, the fear of others, the uncertainty of the future. We let none of those things keep us from being focused on where God wants us to go and what he wants us to do. Luke eleven verse twenty eight says, Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it. And look at how the truth of that verse was lived out in the farmer during this story. He started his day off praying, and every time there was another step that went wrong, he prayed some more. When he heard the voice speak to him, he obeyed the voice, even though the circumstances around him seemed to indicate he should do something different than what the voice was saying. But he had learned to listen to the voice of God, so when God said pray first, aim high, stay focused, he was able to get everything that God had for him. And those three simple commands that the farmer was given will help each of us as we go through times of uncertainty in our lives. Pray first, aim high, stay focused, and God will guide us, he will speak to us, and he will lead us. 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 Mack.
