The kids were excited! No, it was not racing night, it was painting night! The kids all had ideas of how they wanted to paint their cars, and they could hardly wait to start! Professor Ooops tried to calm the kids down so he could tell them some important things. The most important thing was that they needed to keep their clothes clean. The Professor had a big pile of old T-shirts that the kids could wear over their clothes to keep their clothes clean. It was a great idea! All the kids and Shane and Shelly put on the old T-shirts, but the Professor forgot to put on an old T-shirt.
The Professor had some small plastic plates, and he told the kids that when they picked a color of paint that they wanted to use, they should carefully open the plastic bottle of paint and squeeze just a small amount onto the plate. If they were careful, they could have small amounts of several different colors on one plate. He also had cups of water to clean off the brushes between using different colors. The Professor told the kids that he would show them how to squeeze a small amount of paint on a plate; the Professor carefully opened the bottle of paint and carefully squeezed the bottle. Then there was a problem! The Professor was mixed up and did not have the open end of the bottle pointed down! The paint squirted out and went onto the Professor’s shirt! The Professor said, “Ooops!” The kids all laughed!
Shane and Shelly got busy and helped the kids to start painting their pinewood derby cars. The kids were very careful and did not spill the paint and they had hardly any on their T-shirts. Every few minutes the Professor said, “Ooops!”, but Shane and Shelly were so busy with the kids that they did not have time to see what had happened to the Professor.
Some of the kids were very good painters, and their cars soon looked very nice, but there were other kids that had trouble painting their cars. These kids had trouble with the different color of paints running together on their cars, and soon their cars did not look nice at all. Shane and Shelly got wet paper towels and cleaned the bad paint off the cars and let the kid try again. Most of the kids finally learned to be patient and to paint carefully. They learned that it was best to let the paint dry for a while before trying to paint another color right next to it.
There was one boy who had the worst trouble of all! His paint ran together on his plate, and his paint ran together on his car. He kept trying to fix it, but it just got worse. By the time he was done, his car was a yucky dark gray color with streaks of other colors running through it! His car looked awful, and he felt very bad! He sat down and cried! Shane and Shelly came running to see why he was crying and saw how awful his car looked. Shelly got a wet paper towel and cleaned off most of the awful paint, but it still looked bad! Shane got a piece of sandpaper and sanded the rest of the paint off the car. Shelly asked the boy what color he wanted his car to be, and he said that he wanted a green car. Shelly got a clean plate and put only green paint on it. The boy then got a clean brush and painted his car all green. The car looked great, and the boy was so happy!
Finally, all the cars were painted. Shane and Shelly carefully began to pick up and clean off all the bottles of paint. They threw away the plates that had paint on them, washed the brushes, and washed the tables. The kids took off their T-shirts and most of them were still very clean! The kids had been very careful! Then everyone saw the Professor, he had forgotten to put on a T-shirt, and he had paint all over his clothes! No wonder he had said, “Ooops!” so much!
Professor Ooops Lesson from the Bible:
The Professor told the kids to gather around so that he could teach them a little more about God. The kids gathered around, but they began laughing so hard that the Professor could not teach them! Shelly noticed that Professor had a big glob of paint on his left eyebrow that looked like it was about to fall into his eye! Shelly got a wet paper towel and carefully cleaned all the paint off the Professor’s face. The kids quit laughing and settled down so that the Professor could teach them.
The Professor said that he had noticed that some of the kids had had trouble painting their cars, and that they had to clean the paint off and start over. The Professor told the kids that sometimes God starts over in our life and does something different. God does not start over because He made a mistake, but He starts over when He needs to change us so that we can become more like Jesus.
The Professor opened his Bible to Jeremiah 18:1-4 where it says:
The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.” So I did as He told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over.
The kids had a question, “When God starts over and remakes a person, is it because the person has made many mistakes, and God is mad at them?” The Professor told the kids that God is not mad when He remakes a person. God loves people, and when we accept Jesus into our life, God starts to work in our life to make us more like Jesus. Sometimes there are things in our life that are wrong, and God needs to remove these things. But there are other times when God changes us because He wants to add something new and exciting to who we are.
Being changed by God is not something that should cause us to be afraid. We should be excited when we see God making a change, because in some way He is making us more like Jesus! It is an awesome adventure!