Aim at Nothing, Hit It Every Time
I've heard it said that if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time. I laughed the first time I heard that line. Then I cried a little, because it described me perfectly in more ways than one.
Here in Wales, Jason and I have spent years trying to convince our community that Christians aren't the uptight, joyless folks Hollywood loves to portray. We've tried to show them the difference between true Christianity and "religion." We want people to see that we're normal. Fun, even. So we've done what any well-meaning, slightly overzealous missionary couple would do: we've planned community events. Lots of them!
A ladies' luncheon in the spring. A carnival game day in the summer. A Holiday Bible Club in the fall. A "Soup and Singing" in the winter. And that's not counting the "let's throw something together" gatherings and special chapel services squeezed in between. We've invited everyone in the community: believers, skeptics, the curious, the couldn't-care-less. Our flyers practically shout, "Come one, come all, no strings attached!"
We had convinced ourselves that we were being strategic. In reality, we now realize, we were throwing spaghetti at the wall of Welsh culture, hoping something would stick. We didn't have a clear target. We had an entire archery range of arrows flying in every direction, with precious few landing near the bullseye. By year's end, we found ourselves exhausted, and our calendars were a disaster. Worst of all, when we asked ourselves if any of it actually drew people closer to Christ, we honestly weren't sure.
A Season for Scattering, A Season for Sowing
Now, before you think I'm about to declare those years a complete waste, let me stop you right there. I don't think they were wasted at all. We needed them.
Every luncheon, every game day, and every slightly chaotic Holiday Bible Club taught us something we couldn't have learned any other way. We learned who actually showed up. We learned who kept coming back, event after event, quietly becoming part of our little Welsh community. We learned who walked away after one visit and never gave us a second glance, no matter how many invitations followed. We couldn't have known our target without first testing the whole range.
To everything there is a season, Solomon tells us, and a time to every purpose under the heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1). I believe there was a season for scattering seed wide, for casting a broad net, and for showing up in as many ways as possible so our community could see us and, more importantly, see Christ in us. That season had a real purpose. It just was never meant to be the permanent plan. There comes a point when scouting the field needs to give way to actually building on it, and I think we've finally reached that point. The information we gathered wasn't a waste of effort. It was reconnaissance, and now it's time to use it.
The Uncomfortable Mirror
Here's where it got even more personal. While praying about our ministry burnout and seeking direction, the Lord graciously, and a little painfully, pointed out that I do the exact same thing with my writing.
Ask me who my books are for, and I'll rattle off a list longer than a Welsh town name. Men, women, teens, Christians, the unsaved, homeschool moms, retirees, grieving hearts, folks who just want a laugh. Technically, all of that might be true. But when everyone is my audience, no one is. My marketing has been just as scattered as our ministry calendar, arrows flying everywhere and hitting nothing in particular. I've been aiming at nothing and hitting it time and time again!
Now, I know what some of you are thinking, because I thought it, too. Didn't Paul say he became all things to all men? He did, in 1 Corinthians 9:22:
I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
Doesn't that undercut everything I just said about focus?
Actually, no, and understanding why has been one of the most helpful parts of this complete study for me. Notice that Paul didn't write one sermon that fit Jews, Gentiles, the weak, and the strong all simultaneously. He became like a Jew to the Jews. He became like one without the law to the Gentiles. He became weak to the weak. His flexibility was sequential, one audience at a time. It was not one message trying to fit everyone at once. Paul's genius wasn't a lack of focus. It was his willingness to sharpen his focus differently depending on exactly who stood in front of him in that moment. That's a very different thing from what I've been doing, which is writing book after book and hoping each lands equally well with everybody, everywhere, all the time.
A Better Way to Aim
Somewhere in the middle of Nehemiah, I found the encouragement I needed. Nehemiah didn't rebuild every wall in Israel, fix every problem in Jerusalem, and reform the nation's diet in one summer. He had one clear assignment: rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.
So then I sent messengers unto them, saying, I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you? - Nehemiah 6:3
Nehemiah understood something we've evidently forgotten. Focus isn't a lack of vision. It's the fruit of vision. He wasn't ignoring the poor or the pressure from Sanballat and Tobiah to come down and "chat." He simply refused to let distractions pull him off his God-given target. He knew exactly what he was building, and that clarity got the wall finished in fifty-two days.
That's hard to swallow for a woman who's tried to be all things to all readers, and all people, in a single calendar year.
Focus doesn't mean we love people less. It means we stop scattering our love, time, and energy across efforts too diffuse to accomplish anything lasting. A gardener doesn't scatter seed across the whole county and hope a garden appears. He tills one plot, plants specific seeds in specific rows, and tends that ground until it bears fruit. Ministries and manuscripts work the same way.
For us, that means taking everything we learned from years of wide-open events and using it to choose two or three meaningful, well-planned gatherings aimed specifically at the young families and newcomers who kept returning, rather than ten scattered ones aimed at everybody in Wales. For my writing, it means deciding, book by book, exactly who I'm trying to reach, then writing every word and crafting every newsletter with that one reader in mind, the way Paul tailored his approach to whoever stood before him.
The wonderful truth is that a focused arrow doesn't limit what God can do with it. It simply gives Him a clear shot. When Nehemiah aimed at one wall, God used that wall to change a nation's testimony. When we aim our ministry, our writing, or our daily witness at a specific target God has laid on our hearts, using everything He's taught us along the way, we give Him something solid to work through, rather than a cloud of good intentions drifting nowhere.
So today, I'm putting down my scattershot approach, grateful for every lesson those scattered years taught me. I'm asking the Lord to show me my wall, my reader, my one clear assignment, and I'm trusting Him to do far more through one well-aimed arrow than I ever managed with a quiver full of guesses.
Where do you need to stop aiming at everything and start aiming at something?
🔍 PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN: A Peek at the Study Behind This Post
This one started with a groan, not a Bible verse. I was staring at our ministry events calendar and my book idea list, feeling the exhaustion of another over-planned year, and muttered the old line, "If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time." That offhand complaint became the thought behind the entire devotion, and then it grew even further once a sharp question came my way.
Step 1: Named the ache. Before I opened my Bible, I sat with the actual frustration: too many events, too little clarity, and a nagging feeling I was doing the same thing in my writing. Naming both problems side by side made the parallel click.
Step 2: Went hunting for a focused Bible figure. I asked myself, "Who in Scripture had a big mission but stayed narrow and finished it?" Nehemiah (one of my favorite characters) came to mind almost immediately.
Step 3: Searched the text for the "refusal" moment. I reread Nehemiah 6 specifically, looking for the verse where he pushes back against distraction, and found it in verse 3: "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down." I also confirmed that the wall was completed in 52 days (Nehemiah 6:15), since that detail proves focus pays off quickly.
Step 4: Hit a snag, and it was a good one. My mind asked a sharp question: didn't Paul say he became "all things to all men" in 1 Corinthians 9:22? That sent me back to the text to study Paul's actual pattern in verses 19 through 22, where I noticed he adapted to one group at a time (Jew, Gentile, weak) rather than crafting one message for everyone simultaneously. That distinction, sequential versus simultaneous, became a key piece of the final devotion.
Step 5: Reconsidered the ministry's story itself. I realized I'd been treating our years of wide-open events as pure failure, when Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminded me there's "a time to every purpose." That reframed the whole narrative from "we did it wrong" to "we did phase one, and now it's time for phase two."
Time note: What started as a 40-minute study turned into closer to two hours once I went back to wrestle with Paul's example. Worth every minute, though. Iron sharpens iron, even when the iron is my mind’s good and unexpected question!
If you've got a nagging frustration in your own life, try naming it plainly first, then go looking for a Bible character who faced something similar, and don't be afraid to let good questions send you back to dig deeper. You'll be amazed how fast the Scripture talks back to you. Grab your Bible, follow the trail, and see what treasure is waiting for you today.