How to Hit the Mark

Talk about missing the mark. Yesterday I played basketball with some guys who play better than I do. It was exciting. I started off hitting some shots, so they thought I must be pretty good. Then they started passing the ball to me a lot and encouraging me to shoot. At that point, I missed...and missed...and missed...and missed...and missed. It was a little deflating.

If you heard my message last Sunday about the deceptiveness of sin, you know that sin makes us feel deflated. The struggle is real. Jesus defined our human problem this way: our spirit is willing to hit the mark, but our flesh is too weak. Life, society, and human history are full of continual deflation—not because of a lack of good intentions, but because of the weakness of our flesh. 

In my sermon I shared how we can keep from losing hope and being overcome by that deflation. We need to rest assured in the forgiveness and faithfulness of Jesus. We need to remain in the truth by developing a love for the truth. We need to encourage one another in the right direction since we’re so prone to wander. And we need to rejoice and respond when we feel conviction, because it is proof that the Spirit of God is working in us. 

I want to add one more important thing we can do to keep from deflation. I was reminded of this important thing this week when someone asked me for advice on how to stay healthy in relationship with God and the world around him. I told him that he needs to “ruthlessly eliminate hurry” from his life. This phrase comes from Dallas Willard, but the idea comes from the Scriptures. When God created all the good in the world, He eliminated all hurry on the seventh day. When God gave the Ten Commandments to His people to help them be right with Him and the world around them, He told them to eliminate hurry one day a week. In our technology, accomplishment, and material addicted society, there really is no time or space for God to break in. It usually takes tragedy or illness to cause us to pause. Yet, even in a pandemic we can find ways to get over-busy. 

What we can do is make space for God’s love to come to us and go through us. If we don’t have blocks of time on our calendars that are set aside for rest (and I’m not talking about sleep), we can schedule it in. If we don’t, we’ll have a much harder time hitting the mark. 

Though our spirits might be willing, the lack of rest will cause our flesh to be that much weaker. And our kids, our spouse, our friends and family, and a world that doesn’t know Jesus, really need us to hit the mark. Whenever we hit the mark, the world experiences a little more healing. 

David