Starfish

For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.   Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;  let your glory be over all the earth.   Psalm 57:10-11 (NIV)

Have you ever heard something twice in a short period of time and thought, weird, I had never heard that before and now I've heard it twice in a short period of time.  Hmm, maybe that means something.  Maybe this is one of those things God wants me to share and apply?  Okay, I'll go with it.

So my little Godstop is the story of the Starfish.  I first heard it from a motivational speaker at my annual court reporting seminar.  She read it to us and they also included a copy of it in our packet (of course, I can't find it;).  Six days later, we had taken our high school/college youth group to a local church to hear some born again Christian "bad dudes" speak and share their testimony.  The final speaker, the one with the most shocking story, shared the story of the Starfish.

I remember thinking, wow, that is crazy.  I'm hearing the same little story twice in a short period of time and used in two different contexts.  How bizarre is that?  The following Sunday at church, our sermon was on change and positive attitudes...which was perfect because later that day our town was having a meeting where the folks who had been working hard to come up with ideas to improve our community were going to share their ideas with the rest of us.  It had me thinking that this Starfish story kind of applied to that too. 

So I told the story of the Starfish to my church on Sunday and decided it might be a good post.  I am paraphrasing this a bit, but here goes...A man is walking along a beach and he sees someone picking up starfish and tossing them back into the ocean.  Perplexed, the man walks up to the fella and says, "You know, you'll never be able to save all the starfish that wash up onto the beach.  There are too many of them.  It's hopeless."  The fella looks up at the man, and as he tosses a starfish back into the ocean, replies, "But I can save this one," he leans back down to pick up another, "and this one..."

When I heard it the first time I thought, hhm, okay, cutsie story.  I'm supposed to somehow promote my profession and make myself a better reporter one Starfish at a time?  Okay.  Didn't give it another thought.  But when I heard it from the born again Christian, I loved it.  Again, maybe it was the context but it got me thinking.  We, as Christians, have to do what we can do, little by little.  We can't throw in the towel when we feel overwhelmed.  Sometimes I look at our youth group and think, oh, man, are we getting to anyone in this room?  Is this clicking for anyone in this room? 

We have to press on.  And you know that some of those starfish are going to drift right back up onto shore, and we're going to have to toss them back out into the ocean over and over again.  There are times when we feel like someone is hopeless and we are ready to wipe our hands of them.  Nope, the exact opposite is what we're called to do...Christians need to be the ones standing there, waiting to lend them a hand.  We shouldn't stand there and judge them and tell them how this is the seventeenth time they've messed up; instead we stand there with open arms, ready and willing to support, guide and share God's love with them.

God does the same thing with us, doesn't he?  Over and over and over again, he bails us out.  We may not want to admit it because, after all, we're Christians and we're better than 'they' are, but we're only fooling ourselves if we believe that.  I would hate to think how many times I've been that Starfish stuck on the sand.  Thank you to those that have tossed me back out to sea when I needed it!  (And you probably better stay on high alert just in case:)  

As far as it applying to improving our community...no, we can't do big, magnificent things all at once. We have to go little by little and do what we can with what we have.  Then we build on that.  And if all of us have the common goal of improving our town, think of the progress we can make! The same can be said with witnessing.  Think of all the lives saved if each of us were doing what we could to save one soul at a time. 

Whether it's witnessing to someone, improving your community, trying to become better in your profession or whatever, it applies.  We must never give up, even if it means saving just one starfish at a time.