Galatians 5:22

The Fruit of the Spirit Lesson 3- Patience, Self-Control

HOOK:
Have animal puppets interact with each other making different voices for each one.

Chicken:  I’m getting sick of my job.  Why do I have to be the one to lay the eggs?  I have to wait all day to hatch one egg.  ONE EGG!!  It takes so much patience to sit around and wait and wait and wait to have this one thing to give to Farmer John.  It doesn’t seem like much, but it sure does take a lot of patience.  I want to go out into the pen and have fun, but I can’t do anything until I lay this one egg!

COW:  I know what you mean.  My job is to give the milk.  But I have to wait for someone to come and milk me.  Some days, I don’t want to wait for them to collect my milk in the bucket.  I just want to get rid of it and go on with my day.  It takes a lot of self-control not to kick and dance around to try to get Farmer John’s attention so that he’ll take care of me first.  I’m always last and I don’t like it.  Sometimes I just want to do things my way.

Chicken:  Why do we always have to wait?  It seems like we wait for everything.  We wait to be fed, we wait to go to bed, we wait to get up.  If I didn’t have to do all this waiting, maybe I’d have time to lay more than one egg.

COW: I know what you mean.  But if we are patient and we do what we’re supposed to, everything is calm (lower your voice when you say this).  It’s so noisy and crazy when everybody is flying everywhere and calling Farmer John to take care of them first.  I guess being patient and controlling ourselves is better.

Chicken:  Yeah, I think so too!

BOOK:
The Bible says (Galatians 5:22) that the fruit of the Spirit is (read from your Bible):  “Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

It’s hard to be patient.  Being patient means to wait for something that you want.  We have to be patient when we are sharing and waiting for our turn to play with something.  We need patience to wait for our birthday or Christmas to come around once a year.  We need to be patient when someone is talking and we want to say something.  It’s really hard to be patient when you’re excited about telling something you want someone to know. But that’s when you need to ask God to help you wait nicely.  Learning how to be patient is something everyone has to do, when you’re little and when you’re big.  It’s not pleasant to be in a place when people are not waiting nicely and everyone is pushing and shoving or talking all at once.

Self-Control means that we keep ourselves from doing or saying something we really want to because we need to wait our turn.  Having patience and self-control are almost like the same thing.  When you control yourself, it means that you keep your hands from grabbing, or your feet from running, or your mouth from talking when you’re not supposed to.  It takes a lot of energy to keep yourself from doing something you really want to do.  God will help you control yourself if you ask Him.

LOOK:
Being patient means that we wait nicely for our turn to play, talk, eat a snack or for something we really want.  God is patient with us and He knows we will make mistakes.  We need to be patient with our friends as we all learn how to get along and put others before ourselves.

It’s important to have self-control so that we don’t hurt people around or wreck things.  If we are in line, we can keep from pushing, if we are waiting for a snack, we can make sure we don’t grab it before it’s served to us, if someone is talking, we should listen first and wait for our turn to speak.  If we always get our way, we are not showing self- control.

TOOK:
What does it mean to be patient? (to wait nicely)  Do you need patience when you’re in Kingdom Kids and you have to wait for your turn to talk or to play with a toy?  When you’re at home and your Mom is on the phone, do you wait patiently (nicely) for her to say goodbye before you talk to her?  When your Dad is fixing his car and you want him to play with you, do you wait nicely, or do you whine and cry?  We have to be patient and have self-control (control ourselves) when something is not happening when we want it to.  We need to ask God to help us be patient and have self-control so that we wait nicely and treat others the way we want  to be treated.

MEMORY VERSE:
“The fruit of the Spirit is patience and self-control.”  Galatians 5:22

CLOSING PRAYER:
Heavenly Father, please help us to be patient and have self-control when it’s hard to wait nicely or when things don’t go our way.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen!