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.
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Childhood has changed fast, and you can feel it the moment you sit down with a teenager and watch how different their world is from the one you grew up in. After spending time with our grandchildren and sharing a simple moment around a new video game, we step back and talk honestly about the dangers, pressure, and confusing messages kids face today and why grandparents still matter more than ever.
We lean on two anchors: lived experience and lasting truth. I read a striking letter Paul Harvey wrote to his grandchildren in the early 1970s, full of memorable lines about hand-me-down clothes, learning humility, doing hard things, and building real character. Some details are from another era, but the theme lands right now: resilience is formed, not purchased, and a meaningful life is often learned through tough moments, responsibility, and love that holds steady.
We also connect the conversation to Scripture, including Psalm 92 and Deuteronomy 4:9, as a reminder that older men and women can still “produce fruit” and that we are called to remember what God has done and pass it on to our children and grandchildren. If you feel unsure how to help the next generation, start here: stay present, speak truth with grace, and keep praying, because faithful prayers can make a real difference.
If this encouraged you, subscribe for these short weekday resets, share the episode with a grandparent or parent, and leave a review to help more people find the show. What is one thing you’re praying for your kids or grandkids right now?
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.
Just a few days ago, we were able to spend some time with our grandchildren. Our grandson had just celebrated his 15th birthday, and he had a new video game. So I asked if we could go downstairs and play it and watch it, which we did. But as we played the games, and they were fun, they were very suitable for our grandchildren and for us to enjoy with them. But it reminded me once again how very different it is right now for children to be growing up in the society in which we live. There are so many dangers and pitfalls and problems and ideologies that are out there that are trying to manipulate and pull kids away from the biblical teaching that was so prevalent not too long ago. I know that many of the challenges my grandchildren face were never even thought of back at the time when I was their age. In fact, back then, I think our first television was black and white and we only had three channels. And that's only one area of change.
But no matter the differences, grandparents today have a significant role to play in the lives of their grandchildren. Psalm ninety two verses fourteen and fifteen say Even in old age they will still produce fruit, they will remain vital and green, and they will declare the Lord is just, he is my rock. We have a responsibility and an ability to impact our grandchildren with truth. Today I want to read you a copy of a letter from Paul Harvey to his grandchildren. Many of you know of Paul Harvey. He had a radio series for many years called The Rest of the Story. Well this is just a simple letter that he wrote to his grandchildren. This was written back in the early nineteen seventies. So some of the things in here are a little bit dated, and I need you to be gracious with that, but I want you to hear his heart as he's trying to encourage his grandchildren as to what they could and should become. This is what he had to say. We tried so hard to make things better for our kids that we made them worse. For my grandchildren, I'd like better. I'd really like for them to know about hand me down clothes and homemade ice cream and leftover meatloaf sandwiches. I really would. I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated. I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car. And I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you're sixteen. It will be good if at least one time you can see puppies born and your old dog put to sleep. I hope you get a black eye fighting for something you believe in. I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother or sister. And it's alright if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he's scared, I hope you let him. When you want to go to a movie and your little brother or sister wants to tag along, I hope you'll let them. I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do that safely. On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don't ask your driver to drop you off two blocks away so you won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as your mom. If you want a slingshot, I hope your dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying one. I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books. When you learn to use computers in school, I hope you also learn how to add and subtract in your head. I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush. And when you talk back to your mother that you learn what ivory soap tastes like. May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue to a frozen flagpole. I sure hope you take time to sit on a porch with your grandma and grandpa and go fishing with your uncle. May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays. I hope your mother punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window, and she hugs and kisses you at Christmas time when you give her a plaster mold of your hand or a Christmas card printed out from your computer. These things I wish for you tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me it's the only way to appreciate life.
Deuteronomy chapter four verse nine speaks to us grandparents, and it says, Watch out, be careful never to forget yourself what you have seen. Do not let the memories escape your mind as long as you live, and be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren. Our children and our grandchildren are gifts from God, and we as grandparents may not understand all of the struggles that they face these days, but we do have an understanding of life, of the ups and downs, the challenges and trials, the hurts and the happiness all the way through everything we face in life.
So, grandparents, I encourage you today never stop praying and believing in God's hand to work in your children and in your grandchildren. He's with them, he loves them, and your faithful prayers can make a difference in their lives. I hope you have a great day, my friends.
Take care. We will talk again tomorrow. Thank you for joining us today, and I invite you to join us every Monday to Friday right here at Starting Right with Danny Mack.
