Object Lesson | Remove The Pencil

Source (Where I saw it): Original

Supplies:  Pencil

Preparation: None

The object lesson & how I used it...

Main Point: When we don’t forgive it stops you from loving!

Illustration: Show the kids the pencil.  Ask them if they have ever accidentally poked themselves or got poked by someone with a pencil.  It doesn’t feel good at all.  In fact at times it can really hurt depending on how bad it pokes or stabs.  Now imagine if someone came up to you and stabbed the pencil into your hand.  That would be extremely painful.  Imagine if part of the pencil was still in your hand, would your hand be able to heal?  Most people would go to a doctor or hospital and get the pencil removed so the hand can heal.  Now in that situation who is in more pain, you or the person who stabbed you?  Clearly you are, because you are the one sitting at the hospital with a pencil sticking out of your hand.

Explanation: Being hurt and learning to forgive is exactly the same way.  When someone is mean, or forgets about us, or something else that hurts us it is like getting a pencil thrown in your direction.  There are times where it was just a little poke, and other times it was a stab through the hand.  Now the sad part is that many people decide that they don’t want to get that pencil out.  They want to be mad at the person who hurt them for the rest of their lives.  They take up ever offense they can and hold grudges.  Well over the years a person like that may have pencils sticking out of their hands, back ears, etc.  What they fail to recognize is they are the ones who are allowing the hurts to not heal.  The lack of forgiveness in a persons life ends up hurting themselves more than the ones who applied the hurt in the first place.  If we want to be whole, if we want to be able to love and be loved, then we need to forgive.