There once was a young boy with a very bad temper. The boy’s father wanted to teach him a lesson, so he gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into their wooden fence. On the first day of this lesson, the young boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. He was really mad! Over the course of the next few weeks, the boy began to control his temper, so the number of nails that were hammered into the fence dramatically decreased.
It wasn’t long before the boy discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.
Then the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper even once. He felt so proud of himself, he couldn’t wait to tell his father.
Pleased., the father suggest that he now pull out one nail for each day that he could hold his temper. Several weeks went by, and the day finally arrived when the boy was able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
Very gently, the father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. “You have done very well, my son,” he said, with a smile, “but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same.”
The boy listened carefully ~
“When you say things in anger, those words leave permanent scars just like these holes in the fence. And no matter how many times you say you are sorry, the wounds will still be there.”
The father grabbed his Bible from the table and opened it to Ephesians 4:31-32 and read, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.”
The boy looked up at his father as he leaned against the fence. “I don’t know what all those words mean, but I get the part about not being angry and to be nice to each other.” He cocked his head. “Why did God forgive me? I was never mad at God.”
“God forgives us for all the other things we do wrong when we tell Him we are sorry and really mean it in our hearts.”
The boy nodded with a smile. “I got it.”
When uncontrolled anger rears its head, think about the fence – the wounds and scars left behind. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.