“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

A nine year old boy named Tommie received a model ship from his great aunt while his dad was out of town. Seeing the ship’s completed picture on the box, Tommie was eager to begin playing with the ship. However, when he opened the box, he was dismayed to learn that the ship was in little pieces and had to be assembled by hand. As Tommie sat and pondered, he thought to himself, “What would daddy do if he were here”?

As he was Looking around the table, his eyes caught hold of the assembly instructions and said, ‘ if my daddy were here, he would do it right, he would follow all of the ship’s assembly instructions. He went on to say, ‘If I want to do it right, I’ve got to be like daddy!

Tommie followed the assembly instructions carefully and built the model ship. Later, when his dad saw the finished work and heard what his son had done, he praised him for using both his head and his heart to do the right thing!

Friends, we too, must be like our Heavenly Daddy and do the right thing every day! I know it’s hard to be kind to people who do you wrong. How often have people cut you off in traffic, slandered your name or worked every nerve in your body? When this happens we’re tempted to lash out or get even. However as Christians, we are to respond to these situations  like our Heavenly Daddy!