Be Slow To Anger

Materials needed:
12-15 nails, hammer, plywood board shaped like a fence (painted white).
Matthew 5:22; Psalms 103:8.
This fence represents our family, friends, or anyone that we have a close relationship with. This fence is a nice fresh painted white picket fence. It is smooth and straight. It is not a perfect fence, as you can see a couple of nails in it. These nails represent different hurts and pains that were inflicted upon it.
How many of you have ever called your brothers or sisters or family or friends hurtful names or hit them or have been mean to them? Well every time you do or say something in anger, this nail must be hammered into the fence.(Line up teens in a single line behind you). Each of you may take a turn to hit a nail in the fence. Look at how ugly this fence is with all those nails in it! It isn’t a pretty sight, is it?
Now every time that you can control your anger and not lash out, you may remove a nail from the fence (remove all nails out of fence). Look at the fence now, it’s full of holes! It looks really bad now, doesn’t it? This is how you and I would look every time someone was mean to us. The scars that are left inside! It doesn’t really matter how many times you say you’re sorry, the wounds are still there. A verbal wound is just as bad, if not worse, than a physical wound!
Remember, your family and friends are like very rare jewels. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They’ll listen to you, they share words of praise and they always want to open their hearts to you! (Sounds just like Jesus would do also!) So the next time your friends, or family do something that makes you angry, stop and think about this fence with all the holes in it! Think about the nails and how sharp they are as they pierce through this fence! The pain and hurt that you would feel if the nails poked you.