It seems that there was a little old church

out in the countryside: painted white and with a high
steeple.

One Sunday, the pastor noticed that his church needed painting. He

checked out the Sunday ads and found a paint sale. The next day, he
went
into town and bought a gallon of white paint. He went back out
to the
church and began the job.

He got done with the first
side. It was looking great. But he noticed
he had already used a
half gallon. He didn’t want to run back in town
and being the
creative person that he was, he found a gallon of thinner
in the shed out
back, and began to thin his paint.

It worked out great. He
finished the remaining three sides with that
last half gallon of
paint.

That night, it rained: it rained hard. The next morning when he
stepped
outside of the parsonage to admire his work, he saw that
the first side
was looking great, but that the paint on the oth
er three sides had
washed away.

The pastor looked up in sky
in anguish and cried out, “What shall I
do?”

A voice came
back from the heavens saying, “Repaint, and thin no
more!”