Monday Moral Dilemma Devotional #1
This is the first in a series of Moral Dilemma Devotionals that we wrote to help your family have conversations about demonstrating our faith and following Jesus.
Check back next Monday for another one!
Jacob and Cooper were best friends. They had been in school together for years and they were together almost every day of the summer.
After the summer was over they were both going to go to a new school, but they were going together so they felt ok about it. Because there were so many new kids at the new school, they decided to walk in together.
As they entered the school, Jacob and Cooper were overwhelmed by how much bigger this school was than where they went last year. They knew that they had one class together and that they shared the same lunch period so they made an agreement to sit by each other at both.
Unfortunately, their first class of the day was not shared so they had to split up and agree to reunite later that morning.
Later that morning, Jacob arrived first to their shared class and he picked a place to sit with an open desk next to him toward the front of the room. When Cooper walked in, he saw Jacob, but on his way over to sit down by him, Cooper was invited by a new group of cool kids to come sit by them in the back. Cooper looked at Jacob, and then walked away leaving Jacob by himself. Jacob’s feelings were really hurt.
By the time Jacob got to lunch that day he was still really sad. He sat by himself to eat his food. He was trying not to cry.
He looked over and saw Cooper sitting with that same group of cool new friends. But Cooper didn’t look happy. Jacob didn’t know what happened, but they were definitely making fun of Cooper.
Cooper picked up his lunch and left the table. He looked like he was going to cry.
How do you think Cooper feels? Why did he do what he did?
How do you think Jacob feels? What do you think he’ll be tempted to do next? What are his choices?
What do you think Jacob should do?
What do you think Cooper should do?
Consider these verses and how they might apply to this situation.
2 Corinthians 5:17-19 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.