“Ding”. It’s four in the morning and I’m wide awake. What on earth…..?
“Gottit” says my mind, “The starfish story”. You what……?
The starfish story was my trademark for a number of years. You probably know it, it goes like this….
One morning a man got up very early and went for a walk along the sea shore. The tide was going out, leaving behind it hundreds upon hundreds of starfish stranded on the shoreline. In the half-light of the morning the man could see that he wasn’t the first person on the beach, a young man was there before him. As the older man drew closer he could see that the young man was working his way along the shore-line, picking up the stranded starfish one by one and throwing them back into the sea.
“What are you doing?” asked the older man
“I’m putting these starfish back before they dry out” said the younger man
“But there’s hundreds of them, you’ll never be able to save them all.”
“No” said the young man “but I can still make a difference to this one” and he went on throwing the starfish back into the sea.
It’s a great story, it’s still a great story. Why it woke me up at four o’clock on the morning…. Is it a word from the Lord, or do I need to stop eating cheese at night? Maybe time will tell…