Bible Reading: 1 Peter 4:1-5, 19
Of course, your former friends are very surprised when you no longer join them in the wicked things they do. 1 Peter 4:4
A YOUNG SNOW hare was once playing happily outside the snowy hole in the yard where his family lived. His white fur made him almost invisible against the snow, protecting him from the hawks that sometimes flew overhead.
Suddenly, a little mouse appeared. The snow hare invited the mouse to play, and they became friends as they played in the snow near the snow hare’s home. The mouse returned the next day and the next, and the new friends played together each day.
Then one day the mouse said, “Hey, let’s play at my house!”
The snow hare looked around. “Where is your house?”
“I live in a big house, where people live,” the mouse answered. “My family and I live in the coal cellar. We can play in the coal and have a lot of fun.”
“I-I don’t know,” the snow hare answered. “I’m supposed to stay close to our hole. My mom doesn’t like me to go where she can’t hear me.” He looked skyward. “There are hawks up there, you know.”
“Oh, don’t be a wimp,” the mouse answered. “The hawks aren’t gonna get you. You’ll be playing inside a big house, in the cellar! No big bad bird’s gonna see you there.”
“Well,” the young hare answered, “I guess it won’t hurt just this once.” Besides, he didn’t want his friend to think he was a wimp.
So the snow hare and the mouse scampered off to the coal cellar, where the mouse’s family lived. They climbed and played and rolled in the coal until it started to get dark, and the snow hare knew he’d better get home. He said good-bye to his mouse friend and ran from the coal cellar as fast as his legs could carry him.
High in the sky a hawk circled, scanning the landscape for his next meal. Suddenly, something caught his eye. It was the snow hare, whose white fur had become almost black from the coal, racing across the snowy white ground toward his home. The hawk dove to the ground and, in a flash, had snatched the snow hare in his talons and carried him off. To this day, snow hare families tell the story of the young snow hare who came to a sad end because he let a friend talk him into a wrong choice.
REFLECT: Do your friends ever talk you into wrong or harmful behaviors? What do you usually do? Do you think friends who try to get you to do wrong are good for you or bad for you? Why? Who usually gets hurt or in trouble when you let your friends talk you into doing wrong—you or your friends?
PRAY: “God, it can be really hard to do the right thing when my friends are trying to talk me into doing wrong things. Help me to keep on doing what is right, and help me to be an example to my friends instead of letting them get me into trouble.”
