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On target

Randy Friesen

I wrapped up a full summer of missions training with Youth Mission International teams and headed out on an annual weekend canoe trip to Algonquin Park with another dad and our boys. Our “hairy man weekend” is an annual highlight for all of us, and a reminder of the incredible beauty of creation. My practice is to read a Psalm and a Proverb each morning. The first morning of the trip, I was reading Psalm 127 and meditating on the verse “Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one’s youth.” The other “hairy man” with me was a good friend, a Native Canadian from the Mohawk nation. I asked him some questions about how arrows are formed.

On the second day of our wilderness camping experience, I was awakened about 6:45 a.m. by a large grunting animal passing our tent. I involuntarily yelled, “Bear!” (There are lots of them in this park.) My first thought was my son’s safety – he was fast asleep. My second thought was a weapon. I had a two-inch jackknife. Probably not. By the time I got out of the tent, the animal had gone to the water’s edge 50 feet away. When I got there, I saw two huge moose walking away from me along the small beach. Every few steps, they would grunt at each other and bang heads. It wasn’t until they were 100 feet away and drinking water from the lake that they looked up and noticed me. My friend recounted how a moose had chased him and several friends for over a mile on a previous visit to Algonquin. I didn’t move. I tried to imagine I was a bush.

The moose finally walked into the dense forest, leaving me to ponder further the relevance of weapons and what I would do in the case of a bear attack. How would I protect my son?

That turned my thoughts back to Psalm 127, where my son is described as a weapon, an arrow in the making.

The shaft of an arrow must be carved from hardwood and be straight. Bent arrows don’t work well. Carving a “straight arrow” speaks to me of character. “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity,” Paul told Timothy (1 Timothy 4:12). My son, and every other disciple of Jesus Christ, learns character by instruction, example and then making right choices.

The arrowhead in Native culture is carved from flint. The arrow’s ability to penetrate comes from the pointed flint stone. The servant of the Lord in Isaiah declared that he had set his face like flint in the direction of God’s call. The strength of the servant was his “awakened ears”, which listened each morning to the words of the Lord “like one being taught” (Isaiah 50:4-9). Strength of convictions, perseverance and discipline – strong enough to penetrate a culture opposed to God’s ways – will only be forged as we learn to respond personally to the spoken and written Word of the Lord.

The feathers on the arrow are essential for direction and stability. They rotate the arrow and allow it to slice through the air. When Jesus – the pattern for discipleship – was released by His Father into public ministry, a dove descended on Him. His direction and ongoing counsel came through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We all need the feathers of the Holy Spirit to fly straight and true to the intended target the Father has set for our lives. I want my son to walk in the counsel, wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit.

I shared some of these thoughts with the three young “arrows” (ages 5,7 and 8) on our canoe trip one morning. After I read Psalm 127, the 5-year-old blurted out, “If I’m an arrow, then my dad is the bow and my mom is the quiver.” I asked him who he thought shot the arrows. Without any hesitation, he said, “God.” Not bad.

In a frequently aimless generation, God has an intended purpose and target for our lives. There is meaning in our journey. Arrows are not discovered; they are formed. Discipleship is an intentional process that begins in our homes and extends to missions assignments – and even canoe trips.

We’re already planning our next “hairy man weekend”. We won’t forget our arrows.

Randy Friesen is director of Youth Mission International, the youth mission and discipling ministry of MBMS International. He and his family live in Waterloo, Ont.

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Last modified June 29, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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