Archer

 I pulled out my bow today. I came home early from work because it was originally my day off. After doing my usual things of laundry and dishes I decided to do something. What that something was I did not know. Eventually, I decided that I was going to clean the laundry room and sweep the floors so it looked like I at least did something around the house before I went back to town to pick up my Mum. After doing that it was time to go get her. As I was driving back home, I began to think of some of the things I had done last summer. Having just rained my plans for a run got shot. Due to the rain the temperature jumped ten degrees and made it sticky humid. I came home did my usual chores of feeding the dogs, the chickens, the horses, and the rabbit. I then came in looked at the clock and frowned....7:30. I still had five to seven more hours before the thought of sleep even crossed my mind. Looking across my room I caught a glimpse of an orange and white wing. Thinking back to one of my conversations I had today I remembered asking if the said person liked archery.

Archery... I do not remember exactly when I had first picked up the bow, I just know that when I did something about it just seemed right. I got my first bow in fifth grade, I shot it for a while as pass time a way to keep my mind off of things, kind of like running. The idea of something so simple as pulling back a string fascinated me and allowed myself to take focus off of what was bothering me. Around eighth grade I invested a lot of time into shooting. I would get done with my run and go right into archery shooting until the sun went down which would have been a half hour maybe an hour. Freshman year we did an archery unit in class, it was the one time I was like “Hey....I can do something better than some of these people that can play every sport under the sun.” It also happened to be the shortest unit and I missed half of it due to my caved in rib cage.

So you might be asking why does this matter...you used to shoot archery...that's cool....get on with it...you're boring me...why am I still reading this? My question is...Why are you still reading this? Do you have hopes of it getting better? Are you waiting to see if I did something cool?

Okay..okay...I shall get on with it. I decided that I would pull out my bow today. Now if I remember correctly, the last time that I shot was about a year ago. I learned something today. I learned that if you do not practice on a regular basis...your skills that you worked so hard to achieve and be good at....go down the drain. I had the expectations of sending that arrow right through the center and I did. The center of the hay bale...two bales over. Yeah...so discouraged from the start I was like “Dag yo....I suck” I stayed outside for the next two hours shooting the same two arrows over and over and over again until finally the sun went down. As I walked up the house I began to reflect over what I had just done. I was already thinking of what I could change, what I could do to get better again. The solution...practice, it's what I did before.

Even now while typing this, I begin to wonder how does this apply to our spiritual life. In our daily lives we have a target. That target could be anything: telling that lad/lass you like them, finishing an assignment, throwing away your last pack of cigarettes, making it through the day, putting a smile on someones face...ect. We start out ready and aimed at the target, bulls-eye, dead center and then we stumble. We become afraid, we don’t pull back far enough on the string, we worry about what might happen if we do something wrong, if we fall short.

Let me fill you in here on some things that could happen while shooting if you do those things. Fear distracts you, it will take your mind off focus and cause you to stumble and miss your target or possibly hurt yourself (explain that in a bit). Pulling back, if you do not pull back far enough, your arrow will still travel, just not as far as it potentially could and make you miss the target, or you could hit, but it would bounce off. Worry. If you spend to much time worrying about what might happen if you do something wrong, you could end up getting burned. (this is “a bit”) By worrying about bigger things you are more apt to miss the smaller things like to keep the arm holding the bow slightly bent so you do not burn your arm when you release the arrow.

In our spiritual lives we set goals as well. Holding back in this could do some serious damage. It could prevent you from sharing the gospel with someone who may need to hear it. Or if you start to, but back away because they have a question to hard for you to answer at the time or they disagree on something. Don't give up, God put you in that position for a reason, we learn to grow through trial. Satan tries to interfere with our lives, he puts obstacles in our way, distractions, things that may scare us. We as Christians need to stay focused on what is true, just, right, and pure (Philippians 4:8), “Fight the good fight” as stated in II Timothy 4:7 and “Go..” as we are called in Matthew 28:19-20. x