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
Quieting The Noise On Christmas Eve
The final hours before Christmas can feel like a race you never signed up for. The lists are long, the oven is busy, and the year’s noise is still ringing in your ears. We take a breath together and step into a quieter story, revisiting Luke 2 to remember why Christmas brings joy to all people and how that joy can reshape a hectic day in real time.
Across the conversation, we pull out two practical anchors you can use today. First, lift worship above the noise by thanking God for who he is and what he has given. Gratitude counters hurry and restores focus. Second, embrace simple over perfect. The manger was enough; your table and plans can be enough, too. We touch on obedience and readiness in the lives of Mary and Joseph, and how small yeses—patience in lines, kindness at the register, phones down at dinner—make room for real peace. If your Christmas Eve feels messy, you’re not off track. You might be closer to the heart of the story than you think.
Merry Christmas!!
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. Well, good morning, everyone. Here we are, Christmas Eve, and you have less than 24 hours to get everything done that you need to before the big day tomorrow. So if you have any shopping you have left to do or any other baking you need to get done, you're running out of time. You better get at it. By the way, I'm coming over to try some of your favorite baking a little bit later on, so make some extra, okay? With all of that busyness and the hustle and bustle of presents and decorating and baking, we always have extra pressures at Christmas. It comes with the time of the year. But this year there's been a lot of added pressure that's come from all of the events and all of the extra noise that there's been around us. One of the best lines from the Grinch of Stole Christmas is when the Grinch looks down on Hooville and he shouts out all the noise, noise, noise, and he's fed up with it. If ever there was a movie line that describes our year, that's probably the one right there. All the noise, noise, noise that we've had to deal with over this last year. There's been so much noise that we don't know which noise we need to listen to and which ones we need to ignore. And that's made our year a little bit difficult. But one of the other things that all of that noise has done is that it has distracted us from those things that are really important. I think the response to all of the noise is for us just to go back and look once again at that very first Christmas, the one that took place in that manger just outside of Bethlehem. Luke chapter two, starting in verse four. Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David's ancient home. He travelled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. He took with him Mary to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child. And while they were there the time came for her baby to be born. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no lodging available for them. That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep, when suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord's glory surrounded them. They were terrified. But the angel reassured them. I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior, yes, the Messiah of the Lord has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David, and you will recognize him by this sign. You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth and lying in a manger. And suddenly the angel was joined by a vast host of others, the armies of heaven, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased. When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, Let us go to Bethlehem. Let's see this thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about. And they hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph, and there was the baby lying in the manger. And after seeing him the shepherds told everyone what had happened, and what the angel had said to them, and all who heard the shepherd's story were astonished. But Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them. So what can we learn from this story for us today? Well, the first thing has to do with all that noise, noise, noise. The only noise there was on that very first Christmas was the angels praising God, and there truly is not a better way for us to focus ourselves again this Christmas. There are so many things that are trying to distract us away from understanding God and who he is and what he's done and what he's given us that we sometimes fail to give him the worship that he deserves, particularly when we recognize how much he loves us and how much it meant for him to sacrifice his son to come to us. The other thing we can learn from this story is that simple was just fine. It didn't need to be extravagant, it didn't need to be over the top, we didn't have to have everything absolutely perfect. In fact, the whole situation was anything but perfect. It was completely imperfect, and it was in that imperfection that it worked out perfectly for us because of God's love for us. So no matter how different your Christmas morning is going to be tomorrow, no matter how different your Christmas Eve is tonight, can I encourage you to do these two things? Thank God for who he is and what he has given you and what he has done in your life. Thank God for the family that he's given you. Thank him and praise him for being God, and thank him because God so loved the world that he gave us his only son. And let's not forget that on that very first Christmas things didn't look perfect and it was okay. See, God is not wanting perfection in our life, he's wanting a heart and a life that's ready to do and be obedient to him. And that's what Mary and Joseph had given to God, and that's what allowed this first Christmas to take place and to change the world and to change our lives forever. Have a great day, my friends. Enjoy your Christmas Eve. Thank you for listening today. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.
