I was a fledgling prosecutor when a colleague, Brandy Bailey, handed me a tattered book titled Terrify No More. The cover showed the unsettling image of a frightened little girl being carried in a man’s arms. The book was written by the founder of International Justice Mission, a global anti-slavery, anti-trafficking organization with whom Brandy had spent the past year kicking down doors and rescuing the victimized.
I never made it past the cover; after a few days, I returned the book unread. It felt too dark and too big an evil for me. But nevertheless with that exchange, God began a work in my heart. Months later, when Brandy asked me to take a child abuse case to trial with her, I said yes, and my career as a child abuse prosecutor began.
In those days, I heard a story:
One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” “Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!” After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said, “I made a difference for that one.”
I’ve been the old man and I’ve been the boy. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the extent of suffering, to choose not to act on a problem we can’t solve. But wonderfully, our God doesn’t ask us to fix the whole world. In fact, He reassures us time and time again that He’s got it all—heaven and earth and everything in them, the darkness and even the grave—conquered and accounted for. What He does ask of us is to love. To love others with a radical, selfless, moved-to-action kind of love.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18).
As we face this global crisis it is tempting to focus only on our own needs, or to let the enormity of the problem immobilize us. But Jesus says that when we act, when we serve, and when we love, we do it for Him—even when it’s only for the least among us, even when it’s only for one.