Sometimes analogies don't work

A few Sundays ago while teaching the 9 year olds, I was telling them the story of Feed my
Sheep. How Jesus asked his disciple Simon Peter three times if he loved him and every time
Peter said yes, Jesus asked him to Feed My Sheep
So then one of the boys in my class said he didn’t understand why Peter was asked three times!
Why was once not good enough? I said Jesus told Peter over and over to Feed his sheep
because it was so important and he wanted to make sure he would do it. 
They still looked baffled so I said, “Let’s see…..(trying to think of an analogy)…when Ruby said:
“It would be like having broken glass all over the kitchen….and …..” 
So I latched on to that, “Yes, it would be SO important that you not step on that glass that 
your mom would probably tell you several times. Your mom would tell you to be careful not 
to step on the glass and then she would tell you again if you were walking towards the 
kitchen…” 
That’s when Ruby piped up and said, “No, because by then my mother would have already 
vacuumed it up.” 
So I looked to Emma and said, “so if there were glass on your kitchen floor your mom would 
probably tell you and then warn you again, right?” And she said, “My mom only tells us 
once.”
So much for my analogy.
But I suppose if I thought more, I still could not think of an analogy, or anything that could even
begin to compare to Christ telling us to Feed his Sheep. Maybe because taking care of one
another is the best we could ever do in this world.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha! My kids would have been the ones who said, "My mom only tells us once." My dad used to say, "I'll only tell you once, and then there's a consequence." And he meant it! I love these kids' responses. Shows they are really thinking. Nice try, though, GH!
darlene

Susan Anderson said...

haha

I love the unpredictability of kids in a primary class.

;)

Scrapally said...

that is a great story! I stink at analogies, but I'm sure there is a good one somewhere!

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