I must confess: I am not a big Casting Crowns fan. I know, I know, call me crazy. I really have never found myself super fired up over their music though. Their Christmas CD is, ironically, one of my all-time favorites, but other than that, I really don’t listen to them. Until they came out with their new song: Thrive.

This song is catchy, no doubt about it when that is what first caught my attention as I was flipping through radio stations in the car one day. Then I started paying attention to the words. I’ll admit, I thought that they were singing “we were made to fly” at first. Ladies and gents, they are not saying that we were made to fly—probably a good thing since humans can’t fly without outside assistance. No, as the song actually goes: “We were made to thrive.”

I think that that’s something many of us tend to forget. I know I sure do. We get trapped in mundane, daily life. We fall into the thinking pattern of “what can I really do?” We allow ourselves to become enslaved to the belief that we are nothing extraordinary, that we can’t make a difference, that there’s no point in trying because we’ll never change the world. And let’s just be honest: most of us probably won’t change the world, not the whole world at least. We most certainly can change parts of it though.

We’ve all heard the story about the old man throwing starfish back into the sea as the tide was receding, yes? And when a young man asks him what he is doing, and points out that the man throwing the starfish will never save them all, and will not even save a tenth, and will make no difference at all, the only thing the old man has to say is “it made a difference to that one” (Corey).

This is such a simple tale, adapted from a passage in Loren Corey’s book The Star Thrower. Think about it though, we really can make a difference. It may just be one person, but it makes a difference for them, and they may make a difference for someone else, and so on. We won’t all be called to reach numbers and numbers of people. We all can touch at least a few lives though.

Make a difference for that one.

Touch a few lives.

Bask in the joy of our Lord.

Believe that we are all unique individuals who have different talents and gifts to offer this world.

Live-out a life with a little something extra.

Thrive.

Eiseley, Loren Corey. The Star Thrower. New York: Times, 1978. Print.