God doesn't miss the mark

​This week, I've been working on a presentation I'm doing for a sorority Sunday evening as part of my part-time job at a local college. I'll be talking to them about problem drinking.

As part of the presentation, I've included the criteria one would have to meet to be diagnosed with the medical condition Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). There are eleven individual criteria. The more of them one meets - the more severe the AUD diagnosis would be.

I long ago quit wrestling with the question "did I have a drinking problem?" There came a point in time when I looked back on the trail of destruction I'd left in my life, and although the destruction looked different depending on the year the trail was weaving through, one thing remained the same about that trail. There were cans and bottles of alcohol scattered all along it.

Recognizing and accepting that common denominator was the beginning of a different trail for me.

But this week was the first time I'd ever taken a serious look at those eleven criteria. Oh, I talked a time or two to counselors over the years about my drinking, but never seriously enough to pay attention to them when they started throwing the signs of a "problem" at me.

I don't know why this week - I don't know why I found those criteria speaking TO ME instead of PREPARING ME to speak to students. This morning, though, I feel like it was God's way of reminding me that he doesn't miss the mark.

Because those eleven criteria - I had at one time met all eleven of them. There wasn't one of them I had to wrestle with and debate, does that one really apply to me? In fact, they not only all applied, I could have weaved those eleven criteria into a short story and called it a memoire.

One thing would be missing, though, if the story simply focused on those criteria - and the problem. Missing would be the number of times I battled with God - actually ACCUSED God of missing the mark with my life.

Missing would be the number of times I wondered in anger how God could possibly leave a guy who was mostly good and smart and caring wandering a road of destruction and not helping him build roads to prosperity.

So many times, when I was wondering these things, wrestling with them, it was through the lens of my dart board in life and not God's. So many times I was so off the mark when I accused God of having pour aim because I had no way of seeing what God was actually aiming at.

Maybe that was because I was more interested in where I wanted to go and not where God was going.

But Sunday night, when I share this presentation, I won't be a man talking to young ladies about lifeless and meaningless bullet points on a PowerPoint presentation. I won't be reading words to an audience.

I will be sharing the story of a trail with people whom, with all my heart, I want to avoid that trail in life.

I won't be educating people as much as I will be sharing life with them.

And when I'm doing it, there is no doubt in my mind I will be reminded that God doesn't miss the mark. He just doesn't.

Today is a powerful force in our lives. Many days today doesn't look and feel like the today we want in our lives. And often that can leave us feeling like God is missing the mark.

Sometimes, it's helpful to reflect. Reflect on yesterday and today and tomorrow. Be awed by how often it looked like God was completely without aim, only to reveal he is weaving them together with perfect aim. Allow that to deepen your faith that as sure as it seems today that God isn't going to come through - well that's just not the case.

God is going to hit that bullseye. Maybe not as quickly as we want. But God is hitting it.