Thinking Out Loud, Volume CDXCIV

I have a good friend who is an avid deer hunter, but he never uses a gun. His weapon of choice is a bow. With a liberal use of my imagination, I pictured myself as one of his arrows. If that were the case, what would my thoughts be as he quietly placed me in position on his bow as he prepared to shoot? Naturally, his next step would be to silently pull back on the string and aim. You see, arrows can't speak, which would be good at that time, because I would be looking at my target, knowing exactly where I needed to go, and I would want to yell, "Hey, the deer is in front of us!! Why are you pulling me backward, AWAY from my target?!" What my friend would know that I wouldn't was that in order for me to be propelled forward, I would first have to be pulled back in the exact opposite direction of my intended destination. When my daughter and son in law were living in Chattanooga, we had gone up there to visit one weekend, and we went for a drive on Lookout Mountain. As we were taking in all the scenery, we began to notice what appeared to be tiny specks in the sky. Upon closer examination, we realized the skies were full of hang gliders. We continued driving until we reached the "jumping off" point for all those hang gliding thrill seekers, so we stopped to watch as they would run and jump off the edge of an 1100 foot cliff. The one man we became friendly with traveled with the band, "Sugarland," and we watched and talked with him until he was ready to jump. Taking a running start, he bailed off the side of the cliff, and immediately disappeared....downward. In just a few moments however, we saw him soaring about a hundred feet over our heads. What appeared to us as a disastrous fall was actually necessary for him to get enough momentum to acquire the desired lift beneath his wings to send him soaring. In the early days of my career as a manufacturer's rep, I was barely limping along, struggling every month just to make ends meet. It seemed to me that practically every account I would visit was giving the majority of their business to my big competitor, while giving me the small "accommodation" orders. Some months I could pay all my bills, and other months I couldn't. Then one day that devastating call came from my company that they had hired a new sales manager, and he was laying off the entire sales staff, and replacing us with rep groups. My world, as I knew it, had just come to an end. As if things weren't already bad enough, they had just gotten much worse. I was devastated, and had no idea what to do next, except pray. And pray I did! It was then that the big competitor I was talking about heard what happened, and offered me a position. My income doubled overnight, and there's no way I could be where I am today had that not happened. The timing was perfect for me to lose my low paying job at the exact time my competitor was in need of a sales rep for a much higher paying position. And speaking of perfect timing, about five minutes ago, as I was typing this article, I received a random text from another close friend with this quote: "Where you are today is no accident. God is using the situation you are in right now to shape you and prepare you for the place he wants to bring you into tomorrow. Trust him with his plan even if you don't understand it." For the arrow to reach the deer, it first had to be pulled back AWAY from it. For the hang glider to soar into the sky, he first had to plummet away from the sky, toward the ground below. For me to get the GOOD job I needed, I first had to lose the BAD one I had. So.....if it seems like you are being pulled back away from your goal, you'd better get ready, you're about to soar! Preston