The story of two targets (which archer are you?)

This morning, The Mister and I were having a conversation. As I spoke to him about the abandonment I have felt (not from him) in my life, I began to weep. And I saw, in my mind’s eye, a picture.

It was an archery range. There were two targets, spaced widely apart. A vast multitude was teeming around one of the targets. Many, many arrows were being shot. Across the target were words like faith, hope, self-discipline, self-control, good works, etc. I could see that the archers and watchers alike were exerting much effort to achieve and attain the bulls eye.

Over by the second target, there was no crowd. One Man stood there, alone. There was but one word written on the target by His side, and the word written in red was love.

As I looked at the scene, I wept some more as names and faces scrolled past on the movie screen within my heart. Names and faces unknown, unseen, unsought by the teeming, striving mob, but known to me. I heard over and over these words, “…and the greatest of these is Love.”

Will there be any tragedy greater than to come to the end of one’s life and to find that we’ve been shooting for the wrong things all along?

Will there be any glory greater than to hear, “Well done, you good and faithful servant?” For you have loved like Me, looked like Me, walked like Me. “Enter in to the joy of your Lord.”

I wonder which target I am aiming at. I wonder which target is yours.