The Bow and Arrow Saga
I don’t believe in coincidences. In a world ruled by a sovereign God, there are no coincidences, but there are convergences. God speaks to us in a variety of ways: through Scripture, through other believers, through impressions, and through circumstances. When you seem to be getting the same signal over and over, and in a variety of ways, perk up. God may be trying to get your attention.
On Wednesday, September 9, my Bible reading was about Hagar and Ishmael being put out of Abraham’s home, wandering in the wilderness and running out of water (Genesis 21). Hagar put her son under a bush and went a distance away. Keep in mind that Ishmael was not a small child at this time. He was probably at least 17 years old. The Lord heard both of them crying, assured Hagar of their survival, told Hagar to lift Ishmael up, and when she did, she saw a well nearby. Ishmael, it says, then became an archer, which seemed to me a curious detail to include here. The fact that he became an archer indicates that he hadn’t been an archer before this, he wasn’t an archer at this point, but he would take up archery after this incident. His mother later acquired a bride for him from Egypt (which indicates they weren’t still wandering around destitute in the desert; to travel to Hagar’s home country and pay a bride price indicates that they were prospering, just as Abraham had been promised about Ishmael), and his descendants became a great nation. Think about that teenage boy lying there under that bush, thirsty, crying, and in danger of dying. Nobody looking at that scene would have given Ishmael much chance to survive the day, much less to prosper and be the progenitor of a great nation. As I was meditating on this passage, I saw parallels with my family - my daughter Elizabeth, son-in-law Caleb and their three sons Connor, Titan and Daniel, and the medical journey they’ve been on these past six years or so. They have experienced rejection and have been cast aside in certain situations. They have wandered in a medical wilderness. They have cried thousands of tears, and they have been heard by God. They have despaired of provision that’s always come in unexpectedly and often at the last minute. As I often say, God has never let us down, but He’s scared us to death more than once. As I prayed, I asked the Lord to continue to hear their cries; for Him to give Elizabeth the strength to continue bearing up the children and their medical, educational and emotional needs; for provision to appear when needed; and for our boys to prosper and do great things that no one can see right now. But that curious detail of Ishmael becoming an archer was something that stuck with me.
As soon as I finished my quiet time, my phone rang. It was Elizabeth asking me if I could come get Connor and Titan so that she could take Daniel to the ER. Daniel would be admitted later that day and spend four days in the hospital in Johnson City. When I got to their house, Titan said, “Pop, I want to show you something.” I figured it was a toy or a book or a Lego set or some such that he wanted me to see. Instead, he took me to the garage and pointed high up on the wall, and there was hanging a bow and arrows. I don’t know if it’s always been there and I just never noticed it, or whether its being there was new, but there it was.
When I got to my yearly conference the next Sunday morning, Pastor Ronnie Phillips Jr., first thing in the first service, announced, “I hadn’t planned to do this, but I’m going to read Psalm 127” and he did. It was a familiar passage to me: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it... Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth.” It is the very passage I spoke on at Dry Valley Baptist Church in Union Star, Kentucky on the Sunday after Elizabeth was born in 1987, and then almost five years later at Sand Hill Baptist Church in Guyton, Georgia on the Sunday after our son Chris was born. And it is the passage I preached at all three of the grandboys’ dedications. In those messages, I pointed out that arrows are launched by a warrior to impact the battle downfield, far beyond his reach. No matter how successful we are in battling our enemy the devil in this life, our lives will one day end, and he will go merrily on into the next generation. But if we have prepared and successfully launched our children into the future, they will be there to take up the battle when we are gone.
On Wednesday of the conference, right in the middle of the session, a sentence came crashing into my brain. I’m always reluctant to say “God told me,” but when a sentence comes into your mind seemingly out of nowhere, it just might be God putting that thought into your mind. The sentence was this: “Those boys are not an array of diagnoses; they are arrows of destiny.” Of course, it had to be a message from God; it was alliterated, after all!
After the morning session, I went to the lunch that the senior adults of the church had prepared for the conference attendees and church members. The speaker for that luncheon was Bryan Cutshall, who was also scheduled to finish out the conference that night. I had never heard him speak before, and to my knowledge, I had never even heard of him except in the conference literature. He announced his topic, which was - wait for it - bows and arrows. Apparently, that is one of his signature messages (a longer version in two parts can be found on YouTube; just search “Bryan Cutshall - Bows and Arrows”), and a subject he has written a book on by the same title. It is a powerful message about the interaction of the older members and younger members of the church, each generation preparing, aiming and launching the next into the future. I could not help but think about the pastors, most of whom are now in heaven, who served as “bows” for me in my younger years in ministry, mentors who helped me, shared their wisdom, and launched me forward as an “arrow,” about my own desire to be such a mentor to other young men in ministry, and about my great disappointment that that desire has largely not come to pass so far in my life. I respected those older men (most of whom, back then, were younger than I am now), asked them questions, sought their advice, listened to their stories, trusted in their wisdom, and benefitted from their experience, and I believed that one day I would play that role in other young ministers’ lives. But, as I told someone awhile back, “Now that I’m in the Grey-Haired and Experienced Brigade, nobody other than Caleb ever seems to ask me anything.”
With the conference ending Wednesday night, I got in the car to drive from Chattanooga back home on Thursday morning. My favorite gospel group as a child was The Hinsons, and several years ago, I had put a number of their long out-of-print albums on a single MP3 CD, which I found in my trunk while I was packing for the conference. I put it in the car CD player and had been listening to it while driving between the hotel and the conference. When I got in the car that morning to drive home, the first song that played off of that CD was one that I don’t remember having heard before. It was called, “Lord, Help Me When I Aim” (which can be accessed by searching YouTube if you want to hear it). The lyrics say, “Lord, help me when I aim, let my bow be rock steady, that your Word would fly straight to the heart, like an arrow set aflame. Let me look not left or right, when the target is ready, so that I don’t miss the mark, Lord, help me when I aim.” I was glad I was still in the parking lot of the hotel and not on the road yet. I might’ve crashed the car.
I drove straight to the office that morning to prepare Louise Roberts’ funeral message for the next morning before I headed home. I looked at a copy of the bulletin for that next Sunday. The special was “If The Lord Builds the House,” an idea taken from Psalm 127:1.
Seven convergences around the same theme in nine days. Lord, what are you trying to tell me?
I think first of all, the Lord was working on me about the grandkids. It’s very easy in a home with a medically complex kid for the medical stuff to become the overwhelming focus, if not the sole focus. What about with three medically complex kids? The Lord is reminding me not to lose sight that they are not an array of diagnoses - medical issues to be solved - they are arrows of destiny, missiles that we are forming and preparing to fire off into the next generation to serve the Lord and take up the battle with the enemy. Either because of their various genetic ailments or in spite of them, God is going to use Connor, Titan and Daniel. Second, I think the Lord is preparing me that even though that ministry desire to be a mentor to younger ministers, to be a bow and launch arrows into future ministry, may have been frustrated so far, that dream is not dead, and a season is coming when God is going to allow me to enter that role.
Where do you see Scriptures, impressions, and circumstances coalescing and converging? What is the Lord saying to you these days?
Remember, one of the ways the Lord speaks to us is through our fellow believers. Let’s get together this Sunday as we do life and experience God at work together.
Numbers 6:24-26,
Bro. Donnie