A man vacationing on a beautiful island in the Pacific Ocean was walking one morning on a lovely, quiet, white sand beach. As he strolled, enjoying the beauty of the seashore, he noticed, in the distance, another man a native of that island moving very slowly towards him, acting in a very odd manner.
As the native islander walked, he would often stop, stoop over and pick something up from the sand. Then he carefully tossed it back into the ocean. This continued for quite some time until, eventually, the two men finally met each other.
The vacationer asked the native what he was so carefully and painstakingly picking up and throwing into the sea. He replied that the tide had washed a vast number of starfish onto the sandy beach and, when it retreated, had left them stranded there. “If they are left on the sand,” he said, “they will die before the tide comes back in.”
“Surely,” countered the surprised vacationer, “there must be untold thousands of the starfish all along this beach as well as the other beaches on this island. You can’t possibly pick them all up and throw them back!” But the native quietly repeated, “If they are left on the sand, they will die.”
“But,” said the perplexed vacationer, “in spite of your efforts, the great majority of them will die anyway! Man! think how little effect on the multitude of stranded starfish your efforts and hard work are having! How can what you’re doing matter?”
Without answering the question, the islander once again bent over and picked up another starfish from the sandy beach. He carefully tossed it back into the ocean and then, turning to the puzzled vacationer, he said, “Well, it mattered to him!”
Perhaps you have tried to tell someone about the Lord Jesus or maybe left a gospel tract at a restaurant or helped a neighbor with their yard work all because you wanted to please the Lord Jesus. But then you may have felt that what you tried to do wasn’t very important, and like the vacationer in our story perhaps you wondered, “Does it really matter?” The answer is “Yes!” Anything done in love for the Lord Jesus matters whether big or little.
Just imagine how much it mattered to the mighty warrior Naaman (2 Kings 5) that his wife’s little servant girl told someone about a man, Elisha, who served the true God and could cure him of his terrible disease of leprosy!
Let’s not get discouraged or give up seeking to please the Lord. It matters to Him and it matters to those we seek to serve! “But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing” (2 Thess. 3:1313But ye, brethren, be not weary in well doing. (2 Thessalonians 3:13)).
Ed.