Smokey The Bear Met Jesus

   This past Sunday I had a blast teaching the k-5 class at church. I think I am starting to get the hang of this again. It still just wears my body out some. No shocker there after what my body has been through recently. Anyway, we were discussing "Kind Words". As I began to review the lesson several times in the weeks before I kept having things come back to me that I had done during my childhood. One of those things that came up was the memories of when I learned of Smokey the Bear. Now you ask why would "Why would Smokey the Bear come up?" Well, it all began we I was reading in 

James 3:5-6

  "In the same way, the tongue is a small thing

 that makes grand speeches.

 But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.

 And the tongue is a flame of fire." 

It was like Smokey and Jesus met and both of them said "Don't play with fire!" 

I wanted to show this to the children in a very real way so I incorporated a game named for something that God absolutely abhors to get my point across. We played "Gossip". We passed the message around the room. The kids were so good at the game though that the message got passed perfectly. Our message was "Jesus loves you".  So to get my message about the power of how powerful words can be good and bad I asked them what would happen if one side of the room had been one half of the world and the other half had been the other half of the world and I had right in the middle decided to slip in two small words like satan does sometimes and put in the words "never will". I explained how one half of the world would never understand how Christ really does love them all because of two small words that someone decided to say. 

Now think about this for a moment because this is what we do every day when we say one small word. We throw one small spark out or play with those matches like Smokey told us not to as a kid. Our tongues become a weapon against someone that could cost them their eternal life.

 Psalm 64:3

 says

  "They sharpen their tongues like swords

 and aim their bitter words like arrows." 

I know I have found many times in my life where I felt as if I were the Last Samarai throwing around the sword, I used my tongue so much to hurt others because I was hurt or bitter or angry. But I see now it still hasn't changed anything. I sure it did hurt someone else in some way though. Saying kind words is not always easy especially when the other person is not being Katie or Keith kindness, but this is when I need to practice it the most because this is may who need it the most at that moment.