The starter on my car is very important.  The car doesn’t crank until the starter does its work.  It doesn’t matter how nice the car is, how much it costs, how it looks – nothing happens until the starter starts it.

I bought my first car in high school for $100.  It was a 1939 Chevrolet, and the starter was on the floorboard next to the accelerator.  I later upgraded to a car where the starter was on the key ignition.  My present car has a starter that is a button on the dash board.  Three different styles of starters – but each of them gets you started.

Henry Ford said, “The most difficult task in life is the one you never get started on.”  Les Brown wrote, “You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great!”

I read about a boy who was raised in a jungle in Africa.  He grew up in a small village, lived with about 3 dozen of his fellow tribesmen.  One day this boy had the opportunity to visit an uncle in a large village many miles away.  During his visit one night, the boy was awakened by the loud pounding of drums.  He was half-asleep but asked what all the noise was about.  His uncle said a fire had broken out in the village, and the drum-beating was their fire alarm system to put the fire out.  The boy was satisfied with that answer, and he rolled over and went back to sleep.

But that experience made an impression on him.  When he returned to his own village, he told his fellow tribesmen that when there was a fire in his uncle’s village, people beat their drums, and pretty soon the fire was no longer a problem.  His fellow villagers shared his excitement and started making enough drums for every family in and around the village.

The next time a fire broke out in his village, you could hear the drums beat from miles around.  It wasn’t long before the villagers’ high level of excitement turned to shock and sorrow.  The sound of the drums stopped beating when the entire village had burned to the ground.  They actually believed their drum beating would put out the fires.  They failed to realize that the drum beating was just a call to action.

We are good at drum-beating.  We often think that will put out the fire.  We confuse the call to action with acting.  Talking (beating the drum) and walking (putting out the fire) are different.  Do we just talk the talk, or do we walk the walk?  Do we fail to act?

Someone has described the following sequence of how we approach things:  “To look is one thing.  To see what you look at is another.  To understand what you see is the third.  To learn from what you understand is still something else.  But to act on what you learn is all that really matters.”

Joshua had God’s plan for conquering Jericho.  He said, “Start marching around the city.” (Joshua 6:7)  God gave great plans for building the temple.  David instructed, “Start building the temple.” (I Chronicles 22:19)  Nehemiah had a great vision to rebuild the walls.  He said, “Start building.”  (Nehemiah 2:20)  Paul said, “Stop stealing and start working.” (Eph. 4:28)

Someone has written the following words –

I spent a fortune on a trampoline

A stationary bike and a rowing machine

Complete with gadgets to read my pulse,

And gadgets to prove my progress results.

And others to show the miles I’ve charted –

But they left off the gadget to get me started!

Whatever you need to get you started, God offers that gadget!  Receive it and use it!

It’s time to start!!