Good morning and welcome to Starting Right . I am Danny Mac 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 . Welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mac . As you'll no doubt have noticed , I'm not Danny Mac , but I am his son , johnny Mac , and I'll be filling in for him today . I recently came across this story .
There was a young boy who had a passion for martial arts , judo in particular , but he and his parents couldn't find anyone willing to take him on as a student . You see , the problem was that he lost his left arm several years earlier in a devastating car accident .
But after some searching they finally did find an old Japanese judo master who agreed to teach the boy . For months the old man trained the boy on one move , over and over again . Just one move Every day , the same move . When asked , shouldn't I be learning more than this one move ? The old man replied this is the only move you'll ever need to know .
The boy didn't understand this , but he believed the old man , so he kept on practicing his one move . After about six months of this , the old man took the boy to his first tournament . The boy felt woefully unprepared , as I'm sure you or I would , but surprising himself , he easily won his first two matches .
His third match was a little more difficult , but with his one move . He managed to win it . When his opponent became impatient and charged him , the boy was now in the finals . He was facing a much more experienced fighter this time , and for the first part of the fight the boy appeared to be overmatched . But then his opponent made a critical mistake .
He dropped his guard . Recognizing his opportunity , the boy instantly used his one and only move to get his opponent on the ground and pin him . He had just won the whole tournament . As the boy and the old man traveled home , the boy asked Sensei , how did I win the tournament with only one move ?
The old man replied you won for two reasons First , you've almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo and second , the only defense for that move is for your opponent to grip your left arm . The boy's weakness had become his greatest strength . In his second letter to the Corinthians , paul tells of an interesting conversation with Jesus .
Starting in chapter 12 , verse 7 , paul tells us about a thorn in his flesh that he begged God to take away . But Jesus replied with my grace is sufficient for you , for my power is made perfect in weakness . It is in the areas that we are weakest that God has the most room to do great things in our lives .
Now it's highly unlikely that your weakness will be missing an arm in a judo tournament , but maybe it's a chronic illness that you've dealt with for years or a past mistake that haunts you still . But if we , as Christians , are willing to give these weaknesses over to God , then we will see him do powerful things in our lives .
Anyway , that's all I have to say for today .
Please join us again tomorrow for another episode of Starting Right with Danny Mac thank you for listening today and I invite you to join me monday to friday , right here on , starting right with danny mack .