God has often taught me something through normal events, something that I want to share with you today.
Awhile back my daughter and I, my cousin and two aunts attended a Handgun Safety Course. It was something we had scheduled for a few weeks.
My uncle was a sniper in the military many years ago. Most of my relatives hunt and most of them are very familiar with guns. I have an aunt who is a champion fast-draw in our area. However, guns are not something that I have been around a lot and something that made me nervous. Therefore I decided to learn all I could about them and perhaps lose that nervousness.
My aunt, Breanne and I began to practice loading and unloading handguns. We practiced shooting with targets several times. Breanne was a natural; she shot very precisely from the beginning. My aunt always went to the left of the target. I always went to the right of the target. No matter what we changed, it seemed we both continued to do the same thing over and over. We weren’t bad at it, but we couldn’t seem to get it consistently on target.
I am not good at everything and I don’t expect to be, however, if I am not good at something I will practice and practice until I get it right. I could not figure out what I was doing wrong and therefore I could not correct it and this was frustrating to me.
So…Friday came; time for our gun class. We sat through all the instructions, watched the videos and easily passed the written test. I actually learned a lot about laws and guns. I was really glad I had taken the course.
Then the instructor took the first five out to the shooting range to take their target shooting test. Myself, my aunts and Breanne had to wait until the second round. While we waited we were talking about how Sherry always goes left and I always go right. There was an old man in there listening, he walked over to me and said ‘how are you holding your gun?’ I picked it up and showed him.
He said ‘move your thumb here and place your forefinger here.’ Two small adjustments. Then he said ‘where do you stand?’ I placed myself in front of the target. He proceeded to explain to me that I needed to line my right shoulder up with the center of the target.
These few adjustments seemed very small. However, I was there to learn. When it was our turn to go out to the targets, I put those few small adjustment in play. I had to shoot 50 times from different places. I had to get 35 within the target range which was small. I thought ‘oh my, I will be here all day if it goes like my practice went.’ But I was wrong. I shot my 50 rounds and I only had three outside of the range. Considering the fact that it was 30 degrees and my hands were shaking from the cold, I was thrilled.
I made a couple small adjustments and it changed everything. It steadied everything I was doing and it totally changed the entire outcome. It was so much easier and I was so much more precise and consistent.
I thought about it a great deal and God began to show me how that is often all that is needed for us to consistently hit our target in life.
Perhaps you need an adjustment in your attitude or your love walk. Perhaps you need an adjustment in the words coming out of your mouth. Perhaps the reason your church isn’t growing the way you desire for it to grow is because you need to make one small adjustment Pastor. Perhaps your business hasn’t prospered the way you know it should because it needs a little tweaking business man. Perhaps one little adjustment will enable and empower you to hit the target every single time. I learned about guns, about safety,But God used it to teach me about making adjustments in life. I am so glad God teaches us day by day, aren’t you?
