Arrows for Your Quiver

Here I sit before the dreaded “blank piece of paper” which in current times has another name called, “The Blank Screen”! Thinking about the times before me and wanting to be equipped. You know….prepared, ready, poised. This actually isn’t done in a day, is it?

We’ve all had to prepare holiday meals perhaps. Remember all the prior planning you have to do? The lists, reminders, and mental notes make you ready for anything, especially a hiccup on the road. So why the mention of a quiver? Let’s unpack this for a while.

When my sons, husband, and I moved to England for close to three years, we had to adjust to a lot of different things we weren’t used to. Yes, driving on the other (don’t ever say “Wrong”) side of the road at first was challenging along with the change in palate selections. Bangers and mash, Scotch eggs, went along with the “safe”, Fish and chips.

Two phrases I adopted at this time were, “Right is wrong and Left is right” whenever I would get in the car to drive, along with, “Just try it, you might end up liking it.” every time we would explore various restaurants while out among the locals. This was directed to me as well as our young boys. This is also where I began collecting teapots.

So quivers…we also joined an archery club near where we lived that kept our whole family entertained for the duration of our stay. We would all go practice in the woods and each had our own bow, looking like a Robin Hood family! Psalm 127:3-5 states, “As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” NIV

Quivers hold the arrows of an archer, but how effective would this be for the archer if they had forgotten to sharpen the points before heading out to hunt? Not very. Instead of piercing the intended target, they would just bounce off like a child’s rubber ball on the ground. This is not good if the intended target was a ferocious, live animal instead of a practice target.

Can you hear the call to be prepared and ready for what this is leading to? Just like the lists, we make for holiday dinners with family are the scriptures we should have handy like bows in a quiver for our times of need. These are where our strength comes from along with patience and fortitude. You know, the power to keep on going and showing up strong in the end. This is my desire. this is my lifelong calling and it’s yours too!

Listen to this encouragement from Paul in Philippians 3:12-14, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” NIV

Please know, I’m working on this beside you as well. We are not all perfect, we all have a past, but it is in this work of “crucifying the flesh” that the battle is. Battling for confidence in the questioning times, battling for peace, battling for rest, battling for joy. All of it! But be encouraged, because the battle is already won through the power of Jesus’ sacrifice for us.

We will have to fight the spiritual fight here on planet Earth though, as Matthew 11:12 states, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force. NIV We can be confident of the outcome of all this!