Object Lesson on Suffering - Clothing Iron

Use this object lesson on suffering to teach kids how God can use our pain.

Object Needed: Clothing Iron

Big Idea: Let God make something beautiful with your life.

We've included the text for this object lesson below and we even recorded a video to help give you ideas for how to teach it.  Enjoy watching!

Suffering Object Lesson Script

If you have a lot of nice clothes in your closet, you probably have some that require ironing. Ironing is kind of a hassle. You have to set up the ironing board, and wait for the iron to heat up. You have to keep the iron moving so you don't leave burn marks on your clothes, and you also have to be careful not to drop the thing. Ironing boards are not the most stable piece of equipment in your house.

But if you think that's bad, think about it from your shirt's point of view. You're not the one being straightened out by scalding hot iron. That's a level of pain I'd rather not experience.

We make a mistake that requires us to admit a fault, or right or wrong. Maybe we have to endure some sort of punishment or consequence for our actions. But when the hard times go away, we're not the same wrinkled people that we were before. God is able to use that pain, straighten out our lives, and make us like new. That's a hard thing to see and understand when we're hurting, but when the pain goes away, we look back and see that God was in control the whole way.

When painful times come into our life, our first reaction is just to pray that the pain will go away. Well God will get us through the pain, but not before he uses that pain to straighten out our lives. We've all got lots of wrinkles and some will only come out with a little ironing. Let God have his way and he will make something beautiful of your life.

Looking for more?  Be sure to view our entire collection of 52 Bible object lessons for kids and children's sermons.