A preacher on a gospel campaign was invited to go fishing with a member of a local church, a police officer, and his 16-year-old son. After dark, they sat around a campfire by the lake. The father began telling of the circumstances surrounding the ADOPTION of their only son three years before.
“He lived on the streets,” the man said. “He ran away from the ORPHANAGE when he was 10. I met him at Juvenile Hall after he tried to rob a grocery store with a POCKET-KNIFE when he was only 12 years-old. The judge warranted me custody of the boy, and a year later my wife and I adopted him.”
Reaching into his pocket the man pulls out a KNIFE. “Whenever my son COMPLAINS or acts UNRULY, I pull out this POCKET-KNIFE, the very one he used in the ROBBERY, to REMIND him of how he used to live and what he had done.”
The preacher noticed that the boy looked HURT and ASHAMED, and, in fact, a bit UNWANTED. He then kindly said to the man, “The Bible says that ‘God CASTS our sins into the depths of the sea.’ Do you think He brings them up against us again every time we COMPLAIN or act UNRULY?”
The man gazed upon the POCKET-KNIFE in his hand, looked at the HURT on his son’s face and said, “No, I suppose He doesn’t.” He then HURLED the KNIFE as far as he could into the LAKE!