Object lessons...

When our older five children were little I often prepared object lessons as part of our daily devotions. Many lessons were taught and retained using this fabulous medium. Like Sister Crystal Stephen taught us...children retain more of what they see than what they hear!

Olivia has not experienced the benefit of our repertoire of object lessons. For whatever reason I am just not as focused on this method of teaching as I was a few years ago. Recently I felt as if the Lord brought to my mind the incredible effectiveness of using object lessons and I resolved to pull out all the old illustrations and put them to use.

Allen, Darlene and their children joined us for dinner last night and we took advantage of this opportunity to teach a lesson about words and actions. This is a well-used and familiar object lesson, but it has lost no effectiveness over time!

TOOTHPASTE
We started by giving each child a plate and a tube of toothpaste and encouraged them to squeeze the toothpaste out onto their plate. They had a great time as they decorated their plates with toothpaste...after all, what kid hasn't wanted to just squeeze a tube of toothpaste out all over the place?!!

After all the toothpaste was out of the tube we gave them another job...TO PUT IT BACK IN!!! Needless to say this was not only a lot harder to do than squeezing the toothpaste out...it was impossible. No one was able to get the toothpaste back into the tube...no matter how hard they tried.

The application is that while it may be easy and even enjoyable to say whatever you want to say or do whatever you want to do, taking words and actions back is impossible. You can apologize, but the fact remains that what you have done or said will always be remembered. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube you can't put it back in.

A little testimony to the effectiveness of this object lesson: within the last few weeks Rush (our 21 year old son) has said these words to me "Mom...I can't get the toothpaste back in the tube. I can't fix all these mistakes." While I wept with him for his choices and where they have taken him, I was impacted by the way he expressed his regret...by referencing an object lesson I had taught him 11 years earlier when he was 10 years old.

I was also thankful that even though we can't fix our mistakes I could point him to a saviour who could. So, while the toothpaste object lesson may help us remember to think twice and speak once, which is great preventative teaching, Jesus is able to bring beauty out of our most dismal failures. Please help me pray for my boy...he's not too far from home! Truthfully...he's just outside the door and afraid to knock.