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Stories for Teens

Christian’s (Pilgrim) Progress  (Part Eleven)    

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.       Beware!

      It was a cold wet Sunday evening, and Bobby put some more wood on the fire. Uncle Jeff was with the family for tea again, and when the dishes were cleared off the table they all gathered around to hear more story. Even Mum and Dad had got interested by this time and wanted to hear more of Christian’s adventures along the road of life. “Well, we left Christian and Hopeful starting on the next stage of their journey”, said Uncle Jeff, “and as they went along, Christian remembered hearing a story about this part of the journey they were going on. ‘You know Hopeful,’ he began, ‘this is where Little-faith nearly lost his way to the Celestial City. He lay down under a tree somewhere here as he was so tired, and went to sleep. He woke up to see three robbers coming up on their horses, but by the time he had got off the ground they were upon him. They robbed him of his money, and one of them clubbed him on the head. Just as they were about to search him more thoroughly, they heard another traveller coming on a horse so they took off. They didn’t know that it was the Prince who was coming, because He has promised that He will never leave His people, no matter how weak they are or how foolish they have been.’                                             

 ‘What a great story!’ Hopeful exclaimed, ‘It gives me courage to carry on. We have certainly been silly sometimes, and yet the King is always with us even if we can’t see Him! Did the robbers get Faint-heart’s jewels?’ ‘No’, said Christian, ‘He had them hidden over his heart, and his soul was safe. But there is one thing that we have to remember, and that is to always have our sword ready and our shield as well, because our enemy is always lurking around ready to take a swipe at us’. ‘Oh, I will’, said Hopeful.’

“I know what that means”, Betty piped up, “It means that we always have to learn verses so we can say them, and to remember everything that God has done for us other times!” “That’s right,” said Uncle Jeff, “If we stand firm when the devil attacks us, he will run away from us. He is really a big coward!” “Doesn’t the Bible  say something about always wearing the armour of God too?” Sarah asked. “That’s right, that is the only way we can resist the devil and use our sword against him,” Uncle Jeff replied. “ Do you remember what the sword is in the armour that we have?” “Isn’t it the Bible?” Sarah asked, “I seem to remember something about it being the sword because it is the Word of God.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Jeff, “And that’s why it is so important to fill your mind with memory verses, so even if you don’t have your Bible with you, you can remember verses to keep you from temptation and displeasing God. Anyway, our friends went on a little further, and then they came to a fork in the road. ‘Which way shall we go?’ Hopeful asked. They stood there looking at the roads for a bit, and neither way seemed better than the other. ‘Let’s go this way’, said Christian, ‘There’s a man over there, we’ll follow him’, and off they went, catching up with him.  ‘Hoho’, the man said, ‘You look like two nice fellows, come and join me on my travels.’ So Christian and Hopeful followed him. He kept telling them how lucky he was to have such nice fellows to walk with and how good they were to keep him company.

    They had completely forgotten what the shepherd had told them about a man called Mr. Flatterer, and so they listened to his nice talk as they went along, and he kept telling them what good fellows they were!  But they never noticed that the road they were on had turned right around and was now facing the City of Destruction once more. They kept following him without ever once looking at their book of instructions, and never noticed where he was taking them until they found themselves all tangled up in a large net that was lying in the way. ‘Haha!’ laughed Mr. Flatterer, ‘you’ll be lucky to get to the Celestial City now! Haha!’ and he laughed again and then vanished.

‘Oh, oh’, cried Christian, ‘what shall we do? Oh, I’ve taken you the wrong way again Hopeful! Can you ever forgive me?’ ‘Of course I forgive you’, Hopeful said, ‘Even if you make mistakes seventy times seven!’ But this didn’t help them get out of the net. They spent a miserable night feeling sorry for themselves, and when it came daylight, they could see an angel there hovering nearby. ‘How did you come to be tangled up in this?’ he asked, ‘Didn’t the shepherds give you a map with directions on which way to take? Why didn’t you read it?’ Christian looked at the ground in shame. ‘I forgot’, he muttered.

‘Well,’ said the angel, ‘You will have to suffer the consequences of your foolishness. Here is a small hook to undo all those knots and get out of this mess’, and he passed them a small hook each. It took them almost all day to undo those knots, and their fingers were covered in blobs of blood by the time they finished and were free once more”. “That’s just like us when we do something silly without thinking”, Bobby said, “We might get out of trouble but then we have to put up with what follows. Like the time I went outside when I was told not to. It was raining and I got wet and cold, then I ended up with a bad cough for days”. “That’s right”, said Uncle Jeff, “Sometimes God has to let us suffer for our foolishness to teach us to obey our parents and to not forget to read His Word!”

“What happened to them next?” Sarah asked. “When they eventually managed to undo all the knots and get free, and  they carried on the road again, going in the right direction this time. But we’ll have to leave our story there for this time, “ Uncle Jeff said, “I’d better  have that cup of tea now  and then I’ll have to go”.

Morning Musings

How I Should Be!

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Our preacher yesterday morning spoke on marriage, quoting the verses from 1 Peter 3: 1-7 about how the Lord expects a marriage to be. That is not an easy subject to speak on in this day and age. But it reminded me of a story I had read once….

      When I was a kid, my mum always did the cooking, and one evening, she dished up the evening meal saying, “I’m awfully sorry, but I didn’t watch the pot tonight, and your veges have all got burnt. But try to eat them anyway!”

   My Dad just said, “That’s fine Honey, I don’t mind burnt veges anyway, they have more flavour!”

The rest of us kids, just chomped our way through them making no comment, but drank a lot of juice to help them go down.

     Later that night as I kissed Dad goodnight, I asked him if he really didn’t mind his veges burnt like that. He just put his arms around me, and said,  “Your mummy put in a long hard day at work today and she’s real tired.  And besides… burned veges never hurt anyone!”
      Later on, as I thought of this story, it reminded me that life is full of imperfect things. And imperfect people. We have to make allowances for the imperfections of others, remembering our own imperfections. Not making excuses for ourselves when we can’t excuse others. I often forget things that I should have done, or put off doing other things when I know I should be doing them. I have to remember that if I make a mistake, to admit it, and not try to cover it up.

    How thankful we can be to remember that once we have confessed our sins (imperfections and shortcomings)   to God, He has forgiven us and cleansed us from all these mistakes!

So let’s enjoy life and keep short accounts with everyone….it is far more comfortable than trying to cover up, and pretend!


                              ENJOY LIFE NOW – IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!

Life Lessons

Consequences !

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I was talking to a friend this morning and he was saying how there don’t seem to be consequences any more for people’s actions. Young people today don’t seem to be being taught that our choices and actions will always bear consequences, for good or bad. When we older ones were growing up, woe betide us if we did wrong, whether at school or at home….we knew what the consequences would be!

       He was saying that the young years are when people make the greatest choices of their lives when they have had the least experience of life, and have to live with the consequences for the rest of their lives. For instance, when we see how the young ones today are decorating themselves up with tattoos all over the flesh….this is one example of a choice with a consequence of being stuck with that for the rest of their lives. I look at my eighty plus year arms now, and feel very thankful they haven’t been decorated like that….they look bad enough like they are, and I can’t imagine what they would look like if they were covered with tattoos on the drooping and wrinkled flesh that my arms now are!!!

     But there are worse scars in a person’s life than merely outward decorations, scars that are the results of wrong choices in earlier years. Some of these can never be rectified….they can be confessed and put behind them to go on in life, but the consequences of those choices can never be changed or altered. The memories of broken lives and relationships will go on into the future. No matter how much we try to forget them (and we can), others will remember them and who know when they will be dragged up out into the open once more.

     We are seeing this at present with prominent people in the news who have covered up wrong doings of the past, but now they are being dragged into court to either be exonerated or charged. But the stain will still be there.

      What a wonderful blessing it is that when we confess our sins and mistakes to God, He will not only forgive them, but will throw them into the depths of the sea never to be held against us or remembered by Him! So let us always remember these things, and if we make mistakes and are bearing the consequences of our foolishness now, let’s put it right with our Maker while there is still time. The day may come when it will be too late, and many a person has died with these wrong choices they have made still against them.

Life Lessons

Who are You Following?

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    I’ve been watching a documentary on a man following migrating geese in the Northern Hemisphere, and what a fascinating watch it has been! It reminded me of the parables that our Lord told His disciples, taking things they could see and drawing lessons from them  illustrating the truths of God to them.

     The man in our story determined that these geese would know him as their parent, and he watched over the eggs every day, talking to them as they developed. Isn’t that just like our Father in Heaven watching His creatures on earth right from conception? The Psalmist in the Bible says….I was cast upon Thee from the womb: Thou art my God from my mother’s belly  (Psalm 22:10)  Some of us have needed to be called many times before we realised this, while others have had the desire for the things of God right from a very early age.  Whichever way it happened, God has had His hand on us right from the time we were born, and He will never let us go.

      When these chickens eventually hatched, the man was there with them as they came out into their new environment. Like many newborn creatures, they identified with the first moving thing they were aware of, and in this case it was the man who had watched over them so faithfully.

      As he walked along the paddock, the baby geese followed him, and in time they began to fly. As they did this, he took to the air beside them in his microlight plane. Where he went, they followed, and every night he brought them back to the safety of the pen. As he fed them, he would chatter away to them in their language as near as he could follow it.

    There were eight of these young geese that were hatched out together, and at last the instinct began to burn within them to fly to a warmer climate for the winter. There were many dangers on the way, and the young geese had to learn which things to keep away from. Sometimes they took notice of the man in his microlight beside them, while other times they had to learn from their own mistakes. How like this we are! If we would only take heed to what God tells us in His Word, what a lot of trouble we would save ourselves! Again, the Bible says, How shall a young person cleanse his ways? By taking heed to Thy Word. and, Your Word I have hidden in my heart so I will not sin against You (Psalm 119: 9, 11).

     One of these dangers was a wind farm which tended to break up the flight path of these migrating geese, but as they began to separate, the man called out to them and they regrouped in formation following his microlight.

    One evening, they could see a golf course below them and what a delightful place it seemed. All that green grass and blue ponds called to them, but there were hidden dangers there too, in the balls that came flying at them from those smooth looking greens. This reminds us of how what looks inviting and tempting can sometimes lead to disaster. Our birds were fortunate in that none of those flying balls hit them, or interfered with their journey. Unfortunately, we don’t always  get off as freely as our birds. Sometimes we suffer the consequences of our own behaviour, and other times God steps in with an accident or some other way to bring us up with a round turn. What sometimes seems a total disaster, God can turn into good….Joseph could tell his brothers that what they meant for evil to him, God turned it into good for all of them (Genesis 50:20) and Paul tells us in the New Testament that ALL things work together for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:28)

      But this was not the end of the journey for our birds, and once again they all took to the air. The man knew what lay in store for them, and he knew what the end would be….they would have to leave these lush looking grounds and go it alone into the wide blue sky without him at their side. But they were not totally alone….even though the man could not go the rest of the way with them, a flock of migrating geese from elsewhere caught up with them, and our birds joined in with them and they were able to put into practice what the man had taught them up to this point.

    This is where our parable changes. As we go towards our heavenly goal, we do not have to fear being left alone at the end of our journey….it is not a crowd of heavenly beings that join with us, but our Lord Himself who takes us to Himself, even through death….He will never leave us. We only need to hang onto the words of Psalm 23 to have this assurance….even in the Valley of the Shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me, Your rod and Your staff comfort me.

     Let’s see that we each one do this, for it is the only way of no fear in our life journey right through to the end.

Daily Devotionals

God’s Wisdom for Us

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PROVERBS  TWO…. (v.7-22)

Verses 7-22

Other blessings of wisdom come flowing in its wake. The Lord can lead and guide a wise person because their ear is open to his voice.

God gives understanding and discernment to those who ask, and shows the way to walk in life. How many tears,  (and how much trouble!)  we would save ourselves if only we would heed and obey God’s Word!!

It is all written there; the Guide Book is complete……if the way still seems to be uncertain, remember the old saying,  “if it’s doubtful, it’s dirty!” Wait for God’s confirmation, and it will be given.

You will have peace of mind and will be kept from making many mistakes and wrong friendships. We read how the wrong friendships will lead us into trouble! If we keep to the company of believers, we will be able  to live in the land of God’s blessings and promises!

God’s wisdom always gives perfect peace,                                                           And a heavenly joy that will never cease,                                                         There are many blessings so rich to be found,                                                Pleasures and delighting in Him will abound.