Make a difference - 25 June 2010

Over the years I have made occasional contributions to various charities, but these were fairly few and far between.  In recent years, having invited Jesus into my life, I had increased the regularity, amount and number of charities that I contributed to.  In fact it never reached the 10% tithe as quoted in the Bible, but was still a fair amount each month.  Once I had retired my income dropped quite sharply and I could no longer afford to donate even that which I had before.

In fact, I had become so inundated with requests for aid that it was necessary, even if reluctantly, to disregard some of them.  I even considered stopping any further donations altogether.  It got to the point that I was saying to God “Look, Lord, I cannot save all these people who need help, I can’t save the worlds needy.  I have to call a halt.”  He reminded me that I could still help some.  I could make a difference.

Perhaps you might read Matthew 25: 31 – 40.

I leave you with the following story which keeps coming back to me.

A man walked on to a beach. It was covered with thousands of starfish left stranded by the tide. A small boy was picking them up, one at a time, and throwing them back into the sea. When the man asked what he was doing the boy said “If the starfish don’t get back in the water before the tide comes in again the sun will dry them out and they will  die.”  The man pointed out that the boy couldn’t manage to throw them all back, there were too many, so why bother wasting his time, what difference could he possibly make?  The boy bent down picked up another starfish and threw it as far as he could out into the sea.  He turned to the man and said, “It made a difference to that one.”

Be that boy.

Lord, help me to make the difference that could be vital to someone, somewhere, that perhaps I don’t even know. Amen.