New Testament Greek offers us the word hamartia (ha-MAR-tee-uh), an archery term used for “missing the mark.” In Scripture, hamartia is the word that we often translate into English as “sin.” Thus, to sin is to miss the mark. To reduce our hamartia, we practice and develop the muscles of faithful living.
Anyone who has spent time around very young children knows about repetition. To reduce missing the mark in instructing our children, we repeat, ad nauseam, the lessons we hope for them to learn.
The more we teach our children and ourselves about the “whys” of our faith the more able we are to live each day faithfully. The choices that God would have us make become available in our spiritual quiver. The Spirit strengthens us to draw back our bow of living as baptized children of God, enabling us to hit our mark, or close to it, for Christ’s own sake, and for the sake of the world he loves.
This message is excerpted from “Take aim” by Julia Seymour in the May 2019 Gather magazine.
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