I will never forget my first trip deer hunting. I was invited to hunt on a friend’s cousin’s family land. It was very early morning, we were all walking quietly through the woods to our stands and suddenly this flash of brown and white bounded into the trail several of us were walking. This deer immediately turned running down the trail away from us. Before I could, think, look, or even aim, I hurled my shot gun into the air and fired. Of course I missed and thankfully so. The deer was a doe, it wasn’t doe season, the hunter’s morning was pretty much ruined, and I’m sure I was voted most popular by this deer hunting family that hardly knew me.

This morning I was reading in Psalm 11 about how God loves “righteous” deeds and how the “upright” will behold God’s face. What an awesome invitation from God. Basically if we are righteous we will experience God, face to face, up close and personal. I’m coming to believe that righteousness is more about aim than it is about adherence to a code. Sort of like deer hunting.

I don’t know about you but the word righteous has always evoked one of two emotions in me. One, I picture Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s world saying things like “Righteous guitar solo duuuude!” The other I picture Pharisaical types looking down their nose at the rest of us saying you should be “righteous” like me…and God. So if you have to be righteous to see God, that has never sounded very appealing to me.

So today I thought I’d do some research on the word righteous. I had the time since my current occupation is church planter (ie unemployed). For the Jews being righteous is much more than living by a code or set of rules and regulations. The words righteous and upright were used by the Jews to mean pretty much the same thing. To live “strait.” They saw righteousness as something God has and allows to flow into our lives. God even said Job was “perfect” in righteousness. That doesn’t mean he was sinless it just means he let God flow into every arena of his existence. All parts of Job’s life were open to God.

Being righteous happens when people let God flow though their lives at every level. It is living “Strait”; pointed toward a purpose. It means aiming God at every corner of your life and pulling the trigger. Righteous living is getting up every day and having a target. It is not wildly shooting at life from the hip. It is not vainly attempting to shoot down every thing that pops up in our path through the day. It is getting up and knowing God is our target and letting him permeate everything we do through the day.

I once saw a bumper sticker that said “I missed my ex-wife…but my aim is getting better.” I sure hope my aim is getting better as I get up and try to target God each new day. Here’s to daily target practice, lots of misses, a few bulls eyes, but ever increasing accuracy in our walk.