When I was young, I fancied myself as a bit of a Robin Hood. Not the robbing the rich part; just the wandering through woods with a bunch of friends seeking fun and adventure. The woods in question were just over the wall of a friend’s house; we could hop over and back whenever the mood took us, which, during the school holidays at least, it often did.
My favourite ‘Robin Hood’ activity was target practice–using a homemade bow and arrow. My friends and I would spend hours scouring the woodland floor for thin twigs suitable for bending into shape. We broke several before finding the right mix of strength and suppleness suitable for the white-string bow we pulled taut between the curved ends of the stick—um–bow.
Next came the matter of arrows. Armed with a blunt penknife and a straight-ish stick, we scraped off bark, removed knots and whorls, sharpened the end to a mean point.
And then came the moment of truth. Time to wield our weapons and shoot our arrows.
It was always a great disappointment. Immense fun but ultimately doomed to fail.
The English have a long history of bow and arrow making, thankfully considerably more successful than my own. During the Hundred Years War between England and France during the late Middle Ages, it was the archers and their arrows who won or lost the battle.
To become a top archer required hours, even years, of practice. Archery was a mandatory exercise for all able-bodied men by the mid-1300s.
Archery wars also required an abundance of arrows. With no machines to make arrows, they created them by hand. A decently skilled longbow archer could fire around 10 arrows per minute. During a battle of several hours, hundreds of archers might shoot thousands of arrows. A good fletcher could make around 100 arrows a day, but he needed the raw materials of wood and feathers.
In 1416, King Henry V banned the use of poplar wood for anything other than arrow production. By 1417, every goose across England was required to ‘donate’ six of its feathers to the war effort.
An interesting history lesson, you may say—but what does this have to do with me and my purpose in life?
The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name… He made me a polished arrow; in his quiver, he hid me away.
Isaiah knows he is called by name and chosen for a purpose; he is a polished arrow, prepared and stowed in the Lord’s quiver, ready to be shot towards a target.
Like Isaiah, the Lord beckons you by name. He knows you from birth. And he chooses you to be an arrow for his bow in his victorious battle. He is ready for you; are you ready for him?
The success of the English archer was thanks to the collective involvement of a nation; the owners of geese, the fellers of wood, the master fletchers, and the practiced and prepared archers. Everyone played a part, everyone contributed to the battle-winning flight of the arrow.
A community prepares an arrow; an archer carries a quiver full into battle. It takes community to discover and shape my purpose; it is with others that I win the battle.