LIFE,
PERSPECTIVE ON

A YOUNG man one day was on his way to visit a friend named John who lived on a farm. He entered the farm and began to meander up the road that led to his friend’s home. He had to pass by a barn and as he got near to it, he stopped, perplexed. He saw something that both mesmerized and stupefied him. On the barn were twenty targets. In the middle of each target was a bull’s-eye, and in the middle of each bull’s-eye was a hole. Someone had used the barn as target practice and whoever it was, was a crack shot. There were no other holes on the barn except the holes in the bull’s-eyes, centered in the targets. He couldn’t believe it. He started back up the road to the house.

When he met up with John at the house, he said, “Before we begin our day together, I’ve just got to ask you, who in the world did the shooting on the barn?”

John said, “Well, I did.”

The man looked surprised and said, “Wait a minute! I can’t believe anybody can shoot that good. There are twenty targets, with twenty bulls-eyes, with twenty holes in each bulls-eye. You mean to tell me you did that?”

John said, “Yup, I made every shot.”

“Where in the world … how in the world did you learn to shoot like that?”

John said, “It’s simple. I shot first, then I drew a picture of the target around the hole.”

A lot of us are like John. We just look like we’re on-target. We have learned the verbiage. We have learned to carry the right Bible under our arms. We have gone through the right motions, and have learned to don evangelical smiles. It looks like we’ve hit a bull’s-eye. It’s not so much that we’ve hit a bull’s-eye; we’ve just learned how to paint well. It is possible to go through the motions and not live a life on-target.570

[Christian Living, Authenticity]

Matt. 15:8; 23:27