Point Blank Range

As a rifle range coach, I had the opportunity to work with some of the most highly trained, professional shooters in the United States Marine Corps and Navy. Snipers, recon Marines, MPs. I was honored to serve with them all. Part of my job also included working with Marines who weren’t as practiced with high powered weaponry—cooks, motor-T mechanics, communications gurus—POGs (people other than grunts). Over the 18 months that I served on the range, I probably coached over 2,000 Marines.

Only once did I ever feel like my life was in danger.

During qualification week, Marines go through a regimen of rifle safety classes, classroom instruction, and in-field exercises. One exercise includes some standing position, rapid fire drills. Targets up, safety off, three shots, safety on, targets down.

Now, when you fire in the standing position, your collar tends to stretch out a bit, leaving a gap along the back of your neck. And since the rounds from an M-16 eject to the right, with a Marine standing approximately 4 feet to your left, there is a slight possibility that one of those hot casings can find its way to that gap. In fact, in my experience, only 1 in about 2,000 shooters ever deals with it. I was there for the one.

As this Marine, (I’ll call her ‘Smith’) fired with her collar stretched out, a casing flew into the gap at the back of her neck. Now, the single biggest rule on the range is that when you are not firing, you put the safety on, for obvious reasons. That’s not what Smith did.

Instead, she spun 180 degrees directly toward me. With her rifle in the firing position, aimed chest high, her finger on the trigger, and screaming from the pain of the hot casing, she pointed the barrel directly at my chest. Point blank range. One miniscule jerk of her right index finger, and my life would have ended then and there. Needless to say, I was not happy. I immediately grabbed her rifle and kicked her off the range for the year.
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As I look at my calling here at Fellowship Church, there are so many things I have the opportunity to do. I have the chance to work in one of the most influential and on-point churches in the entire world. You could say I get to work with some of the most highly trained, professional shooters in the Christian world! And part of my job here is working with different ministries at different times and on a variety of projects. I’ve had thousands of opportunities to be used by God here. It is a truly humbling experience every day.

Lately, though, I faced a threat. There had been this one opportunity that I was missing out on. And doubt began to creep into my mind. Fear began to swell up in my heart. I was asking myself why I didn’t get the chance to do this thing.

And as I thought about it more and more, I began to have the same feeling as when that Marine’s rifle was pointed straight at my chest. Satan was aiming his rifle of doubt and fear straight at my chest. And one miniscule pull of the trigger and …

But this past weekend, my pastor challenged our church not to focus on the opportunities we lack, but to focus instead on the ones we can leverage. That was my wake up to snap me out of the doubt and fear.

See, I had started to shift my focus away from the things God wanted me to do and toward the things He wanted someone else to do. That’s a dangerous way to live. God doesn’t want me to live that way. He doesn’t want me to go through life with the rifle of doubt and uncertainty aimed point blank at my chest. Because if I go through life that way, then I miss out on all the other chances He has for me.

This past weekend, God grabbed the barrel of the rifle, kicked Satan off the range and told me to get back to work.