Saving Starfish
A young man is walking down the beach at sunrise with his grandfather. It was low tide, and there were many creatures to be seen. They laughed, talked, and explored the tides, until they reached a spot where thousands upon thousands of starfish covered the sandy beach.
"Grandpa? What is going to happen to all these starfish?"
"They are going to dry out and die on the beach, then at high tide, will come and wash them all up and it will happen again tomorrow."
"That's awful! Isn't there something we can do?"
The young man then picked up the nearest starfish, and hurled it as far as he could into the ocean.
"What are you doing? There's no point. You can't save all of them, it's just the way it has to be."
The young man continued. He threw another starfish in the ocean, then another, then another. He wasn't going to give up that easily.
"You can't save them all, it doesn't matter!"
The young man threw one more starfish into the ocean, turned to his grandfather and said,
"It mattered to that one."
He turned around and threw another starfish. Without a word, the grandfather bent down, picked up a starfish, and hurled it into the ocean.
And so it is with the daunting task of being a believer in Christ. Some may say the work I do as a missionary is pointless. I've heard the words yelled at me out of a car window, "You're wasting your life!" Some may say, "You can't save them all, it doesn't matter." To those people I say, "It mattered to that one."
There are those who do not know they are lost until they are found. Some don't realize that they are just like those helpless starfish, stranded with no way out. Jesus Christ is the saving ocean that gives life to the stranded people of this life. You and I enable those stranded people to find a way back to Him. It matters to that one. So who is that one? Find the one, and save them.
