King's Corner: Aiming for the Bull’s Eye
King's Corner column for March 14, 2025
At eleven years old my father, Mark King, moved to a farm in Wisconsin, located near a tribal nation. He and an Indian boy his age became close friends. One of their favorite games was target practice, with both arrows and BB guns. They were highly competitive, with a daily bet on who could win. Mark paid out a great deal to learn to shoot accurately. Thus began a lifelong passion for firearms.
Part of the appeal of the legendary Old West after the civil war is guns, and sharpshooters were highly valued. Mark had a collection of bolt single-shot rifles of various calibers from the late 1800s up to modern versions. He regularly took them to the shooting range to hone his accuracy. Hitting the bullseye was important to him.
Accuracy has been important over the centuries. Ancient Greeks had a word for missing the mark, “Hamartia”, which literally translates “a fundamental flaw”. Ancient Hebrew’s word “chata” has the same meaning. The word later became an archery term used in at least four separate languages, and all use the same word: sin.
Mark practiced religiously hitting the small, dead center of that target on every attempt. He seldom attended church, but he had a passion for not sinning. He was living it out with every shot.
Challenging yourself to aim higher in every area of life is a difficult and rewarding goal to take on. It’s how you find what you’re capable of, and its where you find growth and meaning in your personal life.
Those kind of people were the ones who frequently moved out west in the 1800s. Yes, some just wanted to get away and be a law unto themselves. Many others were lured by the potential of a new and better life, and were willing to work hard in the difficult conditions of mining towns to build those opportunities into a promising future.
Even today the best way to build your future is to hold a goal in front of you and do everything in your power to reach it. But even then you’re probably going to need help. No matter how hard you strive to hit the target, to not sin, you’re probably going to need God’s love, support, forgiveness, and strengthening to get there. Which is why you should ask him.
Mark and a friend went deer hunting in the Sierra Nevada mountains with a group of men they hadn’t known before. They were all the guests of a man who owned the sizeable, hilly, wooded property.
After not finding anything on the first day, they camped along a trail overnight. In the morning they woke to find their sleeping bags surrounded by deer tracks. This had the dual effect of taunting them while reassuring them the deer were there somewhere.
By late in the second day they’d retreated, empty handed, back to where they’d parked the cars. Then, looking across the valley to the far hill, they saw a magnificent buck with full horns casually grazing almost 400 feet away. A debate quickly arose as to whether anyone could hit the deer at that distance.
Mark was in a playful mood and volunteered that he could, so they challenged him. He made a big deal of spreading out on the hood of his car and slowly lining up his rifle and scope. He even asked where they wanted him to target on the deer, and someone volunteered “the right eye”. He made a show of getting all ready, and quietly aimed two-to-three feet over the deer’s head with the intention of scaring him away.
He fired, and the deer dropped. No one could believe it, including Mark, but he didn’t let on. A young man in the group volunteered to climb down into the valley and up the other side to look closely at the deer, and they let him. The trip there and back took almost an hour. When he reemerged, exhausted, they asked where the deer was hit.
“In the left eye”
Mark covered his surprise with quick thinking and said, “Well my right eye was his left eye, and I must have forgotten that.”
Everyone looked at him in dead silence, then quietly began to pack up the cars and left. The property owner suggested he leave the deer and let him go recover it sometime later. They understood he wanted the meat and antlers, and it was his property. Mark’s friend quietly said with a smile, “I don’t think we’ll be invited again”.
Sometimes with the best of good fortune we can avoid sinning. But it usually doesn’t come that easily. More often we need the help of others, and of God. But to aim for that higher mark – to become the marksman of your life story – is worth your best effort. And it’s worth asking God about all those times you’ve missed, and how he can help you reach the very center of your life’s goal.
