Posted on 05.14.2021
Let’s All Make The Day Count – Soapbox Jr.
I introduced… no… I dragged dad kicking and screaming into something called Twitter back in 2011. A cousin of dad’s parked the @CharlieDaniels Twitter handle shortly after the service launched, otherwise we would have had to go with something like “@RealCharlieDaniels” or “@Charlie_Daniels.”
As I’ve often facetiously said, if dad would stop holding back and say what he really feels, he might actually go places.
Well, Twitter gave him that platform to say what he was thinking at any given moment, and he learned to take advantage of that platform.
He didn’t always do it as gracefully as I had hoped, I asked him many times to look a tweet over before he clicked Send, and I had to step in from time to time to correct and remove the old tweet since Twitter STILL won’t let you edit something once it has been tweeted.
But one thing that came out of his Twitter experience was every morning when he started his day, he did his daily tweets, “Remember 9/11” “Benghazi Ain’t Going Away” “22 VETERANS COMMIT SUICIDE EVERY DAY!” and so on.
He also tweeted a Bible verse, a prayer and some daily words of wisdom that he always ended “Let’s all make the day count.” These tweets became so popular that a collection of them, along with a scripture and a few new paragraphs expanding on the original tweet and released as a daily devotional-style book of 100 of these daily readings.
The book has done extremely well, in fact, it’s currently in its third printing, and as I reported recently, I recorded an audiobook performance which should be available later this year.
But I also started thinking that dad did probably over 2,000 of these daily tweets, sometimes he repeated himself, but even so, there were still many that weren’t used.
So, me as this writer who isn’t really a writer, but is somehow managing to string some words together here and there had an idea. What if I took some of these unused tweets and tried to put it together into a Volume II, and if I added one of dad’s prayers that he tweeted every day, that would be even better.
So, I started pouring through his old tweets and drawing some inspiration from my own, albeit less-traveled, life, I started trying to put the pieces in place.
On May 3, I had three done, today I’ve got twenty-five, so I’m one-quarter of the way there.
I don’t even know if our publisher will pick this up, but I’m plowing ahead, nevertheless.
So, here’s a taste of what I’ve been working on, some are more about dad, and some are just me, except for the scripture, the prayer, and the original “Let’s all make the day count” tweets.
These are in rough form and may appear differently if we ever do get published.
2
Goals
“Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” – Psalm 37:4 NIV
My dad said that he had goals when he was starting out in the music business. He wanted to be a successful studio musician, and then his goals started evolving, He wanted to have his own career as a performer, then to have a gold album, then platinum, double platinum and so on.
He wanted to play for more people, and his long-standing goal of joining the Grand Ole Opry was finally realized when he was invited by Martina McBride in 2007, something he thought would never happen.
But there was one last goal that seemed more of a pipe dream, The Country Music Hall of Fame.
In 2016, he was told by CMA president Sarah Trahern that he was to be one of the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2016, and his eyes welled up with tears at the news. He said this one was the cherry on top, the one was the one you really couldn’t do anything about, because the voting process was secret, and there wasn’t a way to lobby for it or try to meet that goal on your own, it was completely out of his hands, and in the hands of others.
But the Lord wants to give us the desires of our hearts, and He did that with my dad repeatedly, and He wants to give us ours as well, if we seek His Kingdom first.
“Sometimes the attitude of “Never give up” can lead down some long and lonesome roads and across some high and treacherous mountains and deep rivers, but the journey and the result is well worth the sacrifices Hold on, hang in!”
Let’s all make the day count.
Prayer:
“Lord, see us through this day, let us live it in ways that are pleasing to You. May that be our highest goal.”
6
Love One Another
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” - John 13:34 NIV
I recently saw a news article which made me extremely sad. It was about a daily devotional book written by an African American woman who in one of the chapters wrote a prayer asking the Lord to help her hate white people.
Our nation has become so divided recently, to hear about someone praying for more division instead of unity is tragic, let alone praying for hate.
Hate divides us, hate brings chaos and disruption.
Love unites us, love brings healing and harmony.
Truth be told, there are those who seek to divide us for their own nefarious reasons, for they know that we are weaker when we are divided, and united we are strong and formidable.
I pray that we end the division and hate, open up dialogues and start healing the brokenness of our nation, and not let our differences keep us apart.
As dad once sang. “We’ll all stick together, and you can take that to the bank. That’s the cowboys and the hippies and the rebels and the yanks.”
In other words, “United We Stand.
“The phrase "I love you" never frays or tatters and you can never repeat it too often or too many times.”
Let’s all make the day count.
Prayer:
“Lord, hear the prayers of Your people and begin the healing process we so desperately need.“
8
Beating the Devil
“Submit therefore to God. But resist the devil,
and he will flee from you.” – James 4:7 NASB
Back in 1980, dad had a promotion man from Epic Records who had been traveling out in the country while “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” was skyrocketing up the charts tell him that he was flipping around on different stations when he heard the song and waited for it to finish so he could tell what the station was.
Unexpectedly, the voice on the radio said, “Yes, you too can beat the devil…” It turns out that a local preacher who did a weekly radio show built one of his messages around the song.
Not surprisingly, the Gospel station played the “son-of-a-gun” version.
While the character of Johnny is arrogant and prideful, and wagers his immortal soul against the devil which is ill-advised at best, it still teaches us a powerful lesson.
Johnny was so confident in his ability, that he never doubted that he had what it took to beat the devil. We need to build that kind of confidence in ourselves to be able to resist the temptations that Satan will try to use against us.
We need to stand firm in our faith, because what is at stake is worth more than a fiddle of gold.
“The devil never takes a day off, but neither does God.”
Let's all make the day count.
Prayer:
“Lord, Your word says that if we resist the devil he will flee from us. Father, give us a little extra strength to pay him no mind today.”
That’s a brief taste of what I’m working on. Twenty-five down, only seventy-five more to go.
We’ll see what happens.
Let’s all make the day count!
What do you think?
Pray for our troops, our police, the peace of Jerusalem, and for our nation.
God Bless America!
— Charlie Daniels, Jr.
PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU POST
Feel free to comment on soapboxes, but please refrain from profanity and anonymous posts are not allowed, we need a name and you MUST provide a valid email address. If you provide an email address, but leave the name as "Anonymous" we will pick a name for you based on your email address. No one other than website administrators will see your email address, not other posters. If you post without a valid email address, your comment (whether positive or negative) will be deleted. — TeamCDB/BW
Check out "Geechi Geechi Ya Ya Blues" from Beau Weevils - 'Songs in the Key of E'
Comments
Post a CommentComments
Posted by Plowboy
Posted by Mark
Posted by Michael