I was angry. Then I laughed. My neurons were stuck on asking, “How in the world can you look at a word fifty times or more and never realize it’s missing a letter?” Shooting has an ‘i’ in between ‘t’ and ‘n’. Duh, Randy!
 
How I could make such a stupid mistake was a conundrum — or was it?
 
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I recently posted a video showing an incident of a buck checking out my archery target. In the video I included some text. Or at least tried to!
 
After several hundred views, it was brought to my attention that somehow I managed to leave the letter ‘i’ out of the word ‘shooting.’ In the process of dealing with my gross mistake, the thought occurred to me.
 
Should shooting even have an ‘I?’
 
What if there were no ‘I’ in archery. Or no ‘I’ in bowhunting. What if all things pertaining to the outdoors, where so often we see inflated egos, was eradicated of any ‘me,’ ‘my,’ or ‘I?’
 
How different would things be if ‘I’ came up missing?
 
Yes, we have individual needs. But, there are needy people all around us. It’s all too easy to get focused on ‘I’ and not see the bigger picture. Less of ‘I’ and more of ‘others’ would be a good thing.
 

Empty me of the selfishness inside.
Every vain ambition and poison of my pride.
And any foolish thing my heart holds to,
Lord empty me of me so I can be filled with You. – Chris Sligh

 
I appreciate when God uses my own mistakes to humble me. And looking at my blunder, I wonder if it was a blunder at all? Maybe it was a message. A subtle reminder to be careful in every area of my life. People don’t need to see me, they need to see Jesus in me.
 
Could it be my own inadequacies are to remind me of who I am and just how dependent I am on Christ to help me day by day?
 
There are many ways to deal with our failures. We can either keep record of how many we make, or realize we are only human and there is only One who is divine. Yet, even in this, there is a humbling — a recognition of our utter dependence upon Him.
 
God help me to remember: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” – John 3:30