Hitting the Target

 

My dad was a champion archer. He won many competitions over the years, even up to the national level. When I was young, I used to go with him to the park where he practiced. The first thing he did was to set up the target. There’s no point in just shooting arrows into the air! You need a target to aim at in order to see if you are shooting accurately.

 

Many people live their lives aimlessly. They go from day to day just existing, without any real purpose to their lives. They feel unfulfilled, as if they are shooting the arrow of their lives into space, without any target. They find it easy to get diverted into unproductive areas such as substance abuse, in their search for relief from the meaninglessness of their lives.

 

As Christians, we should live with a goal for our lives, to serve our Lord Jesus Christ and to become more like Him, that we might grow closer to God in readiness for the day when we will meet Him face-to-face.  Once we accept that goal for our lives, we have a target we can shoot for, something we can use to measure the progress in our Christian walk.

 

Going back to archery for a minute, my dad had a sight on his bow. He could look through it and see if he was aligned with the bullseye.  Jesus sent His Spirit to help us with the decisions we make in our lives. The Spirit helps us see if what we are doing is aligned with our goals or not. We will never hit the target if we are pointing in the wrong direction!

 

This is a lifelong process, not one that we achieve once and are done with. Paul said of his own personal life, “Not that I have already obtained this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…..But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).

 

Next week we’ll look at the practical day-to-day aspects of setting goals and objectives for our lives. In the meantime, let’s stop and think this week about our goals and what we are doing to achieve them.

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The individual posts in this blog have been collected into a book, Reflections From the Basic Truths Blog.  It is available for free as an ebook through Barnes and Noble, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/reflections-from-the-basic-truths-blog-james-yarmchuk/1147055811?ean=2940181202702, Apple Books, and multiple other book websites. It is available for a minimal charge on Amazon and can also be purchased as a paperback through them.