Pastor Timothy J. Smith tells about an incident in grade school that made an indelible impression on his life:
“It was Sunday morning and my brother and I were waiting outside in our front yard for our parents and baby brother to go to Sunday School. My brother and I were doing what boys do best. I was chasing my brother around with my Bible in hand. In those days we took Bibles to Sunday School. Maybe we were playing tag or some such game that young children engage in while waiting for their parents to take them someplace.
“Unknown to me at the time, my Sunday School teacher Mrs. Fulmer, drove by our house. Apparently we had missed Sunday School a couple of weeks and she wanted to see if my brother and I needed a ride. It was an act of love that she went out of her way to drive by our house that Sunday morning. She didn’t stop when she saw us in our Sunday clothes waiting in the front yard. And I certainly did not see her.
“Later that morning in Sunday School our lesson focused on the care we give our Bibles. Mrs. Fulmer told a story about two boys. On her way to church that morning she observed two boys playing in their yard. The oldest boy was hitting his little brother over the head with his Bible. Then she said something like, would Jesus be pleased with boys hitting each other with their Bible, or some such thought. Then Mrs. Fulmer looked straight at me. She did not say a word. She did not have to. I knew I was guilty, I knew I was the one she saw hitting his brother with the Bible. No one else in class knew what brought on this discussion. Probably no one remembers this class or ever knew who Mrs. Fulmer was talking about. But it was a lesson I have never forgotten.”
Sometimes God has to trick us to look in the mirror that we ourselves have hung. Sometimes God uses other people to get us to examine our own motives. And sometimes the process can be painful because we realize that we have done wrong.