"one early morning, after a fierce storm had hit the coast, i strolled to the beach for my morning walk. horrified, i saw that tens of thousands of starfish had been washed up on the beach by the winds and waves. i was saddened by the realization that all of them would die, stranded on the shore, away from the life-giving water. despairing that there was nothing i could do, i sat down on the sand and put my head in my hands.

but then i heard a sound, and i lifted my eyes. there, in the distance, i saw a man bending down and then standing up, bending down and standing up. curious, i rose and walked toward him. i saw that he was picking up the starfish, one at a time, and throwing them back into the sea.

'what are you doing?' i yelled.
'saving the starfish,' he replied.
'but don't you see, man, that there are tens of thousands of them?' i asked, incredulous. 'nothing you can do will make a difference.'

he did not answer me but instead bent down, picked up another starfish, and cast it back into the water. then he smiled, looked me in the eye, and said, 'it made a difference to that one!'"

"all i need
you are all i need
i have found it true
life comes only from you

all i need
you are all i need
nothing else will do
no one else but you."

"mother teresa once said, 'i am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.' she had it right. we're not authors, any of us. we are just the 'pencils.' once we understand that, we might actually become useful to God."

so i was reading in the book of exodus this morning, God's instructions to moses on building the tabernacle and everything in it. i found myself glazing over, getting lost in the endless details of exactly how to fashion every room and every item down to the last detail. but it struck me just how important our acts of worship are to God. certainly the order and detail of how we worship has changed but the significance and importance of our worship to God has not diminished one bit. it's easy to get lost in the details, but God went to painstaking measures to ensure that his people worshiped him properly and could enjoy fellowship with him as he intended.

i can't help but wonder in our self-centered society, what God thinks of our worship? we talk so much about our own preferences in worship... i wonder when was the last time we asked God how he wanted us to worship? i wonder how much of our worship is really a self-sacrificing act of adoration toward God, and how much of it is just another way for us to fill a void in our own lives and satisfy our own self-seeking desires? if god went into such great detail in instructing the nation of israel how to worship, i can't hardly believe he is indifferent to the ways in which we worship. may we always be a people who seek hard after God and worship him just as he intends us to.