The View from My Place – “What I Can Do is Enough”

The other day I wrote in my journal,

I cannot do what I cannot do,
But I can do what I can do,
And what I can do, through Christ who strengthens me
Is enough to accomplish what God has for me to do.

We look around at the world. We look at our families. We look at our work environment. Caring and conscientious people always feel the tug to do more than they actually can do. It is a blessing to be confident that what we can do is enough to accomplish what God has for us to do. Like the classic story about the boy and the starfish on the beach.

An old man was doing his daily walk along the beach one morning, when he spotted a young boy crouched by the water, scooping something up from the sand and throwing it into the sea.

“What are you doing there, boy?” the old man asked, walking closer.

“I’m saving these starfish that are stranded” replied the boy, “if they stay on the beach they will dry out and die, so I’m putting them back into the ocean so they can live.”

“Young man” he said, “on this stretch of beach alone, there must be more than one hundred stranded starfish. Around the next corner, there must be at least one thousand more. This goes on for miles and miles and miles – I’ve done this walk every day for 10 years, and it’s always the same. There must be millions of stranded starfish! I hate to say it, but you’ll never make a difference.”

The boy replied, “well I just made a difference for that one,” and he continued with his work.

Don’t let the size of the need paralyze you from helping someone in need.  Don’t worry about how many starfish are on the beach.  Instead, realize you are an expression of God’s grace to the one you helped.