Read: Galatians 5:22-26

"Just do it,” coaxed Henry. “She’ll never know it was you.” Henry was trying to get his classmate Niam to put a whoopee cushion on their teacher’s chair. “Come on, it will be hilarious!”

“Okay,” said Niam. But when Mrs. Mills sat down and her face turned red, it didn’t seem so funny after all.

Later that day, Henry talked some classmates into putting petroleum jelly on all the door knobs in the classroom. But when Mrs. Mills couldn’t open the door for recess, she frowned and announced they would be staying inside.

At the end of the day, Henry was instructed to go to the principal’s office instead of the bus line. When he arrived, both of his parents were there. They didn’t look happy.

No one spoke on the drive home. When they pulled into the driveway, Dad turned off the engine and told Henry to go get a can of white paint. Henry didn’t know what Dad was up to, but he did as he was told.

“Let’s open this up and see how much we have,” said Dad. They pried off the rusty lid and peered inside. It looked okay. “We have to stir it,” said Dad. “It’s been sitting a while.”

As Henry stirred vigorously, chunks of old, rubbery paint and rust began dotting the surface. The harder he stirred, the worse it got. “All this stirring is making it worse!” Henry exclaimed.

“When you stir old paint, it loosens all the impurities in the can,” Dad explained. “Kind of like how you’ve been stirring things up at school.”

Henry stopped stirring the paint and sighed. “I was just trying to have some fun.”

“Yes, but at the expense of others. When you ask your classmates to do things that embarrass or hurt others, you’re encouraging them to sin. The Bible tells us to stir up love and good works, but you can’t do that by only thinking of yourself—just like you can’t stir up good paint from this old can. You need to depend on Jesus to help you stir up love and encourage others to do good things instead.”

“I guess you’re right.” Henry took the stirring stick out of the can. “I’ll be more careful about what I stir up.”

–Laura Kuehn

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