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Special recognition to my princess Ms. Jana Rebekah Simmons, my beautiful sisters Ms. Angelia Dingle and Ms. Bonita Simmons, and pride for my bold, and brilliant nieces Ms. Jacqualyn Dingle, Ms. Stephanie Dingle, Ms. Taegan Simmons, and Ms. Bryn Simmons.

A Read And Pass (RAP) Book moves fast from one person to the next. It works on the six degrees principle. As you read it, feel free to annotate. After you finish, please acknowledge below, add your commentary at the back, and pass it on to give someone else the opportunity to learn from, grow from, and be blessed by it. Reaching the world!

A Bow String joins two ends of the Bow Stave and launches an Arrow. Qualities of a Bow String are integrity, flexibility, and durability. Without a Bow String (You); the Bow Stave (the Church) and the Arrow (your ministries, talents, and gifts) accomplish little to nothing. The Bow String needs to be anchored to the Bow Stave before the Arrow can be of significance and the Arrow’s potential is relative to how far the Bow String is stretched. Laid up against a relaxed Bow String, the Arrow falls flat to the ground. Likewise, releasing too soon or exerting little effort on the Bow String nets little distance – the arrow may fly for a moment but has no real thrust; it might even reach a close range target but by the time it is useful it is likely too late to be effective. The more the Bow String is stretched, the farther the Arrow will reach.

No matter how well-crafted the Bow Stave, or how strong the Bow String is, or how perfectly proportioned and balanced the Arrow is, our Master Archer (our Heavenly Father) is ultimately in control of what to do with it all. He knows what He wants to accomplish with you. With His Bow Stave in hand, He selects an Arrow that will hit the mark. Then He starts to stretch the Bow String. He knows his workmanship intimately. He fashioned the Bow Stave, the Bow String, and the Arrow. He understands their purpose and potential, the Bow String’s breakpoint and sweet spot. He knows how far to pull to bring out the best. All that is required is trust in the Master Archer. He knows when to shoot slightly right of the target to counter the coming crosswind and when to favor left to adjust for our tendency to pull opposite of His will. He judges the distance and aims higher than dead-on understanding forces are constantly working against to pull the Arrow down short of the goal. Then, when the conditions and timing are just right, He releases the Bow String—the Arrow gracefully soars with purpose and full commitment and always hits the mark. May this and the following work truly bless you. – Jacob

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1 Corinthians 13:11) “But when I became a man…” This passage gives clear and pointed insight into how and when one becomes a man? The key action word “became,” past tense of “become,” is commonly defined: to come into being, to be suitable or necessary to the dignity, situation, or responsibility of; the process of change. If we accept this verse as our biblical foundation and acknowledge this definition as the prerequisite requirement, we must conclude that becoming a man is conditional.

Foremost, let’s concede upfront that one must be a male to become a man. However, many widely accepted perceptions of what additional factors and traits define a man are deeply rooted in self-actualization or rites of passage. We readily accept that one becomes a man or is becoming a man as a matter of natural course, the only universally agreed limitation being the biological traits. We can all acknowledge that men are males, but what more do we, and more relevantly God, require to become men?

To become something new, there must be a transition and an image or likeness to model and conform to. A soldier does not become a soldier simply by enlisting or commissioning; individuality is stripped away, independence is broken, and uniformity is cultivated, so what’s left can be built into a component equipped to perform its role as a part of a greater cohesive unit with a singular goal.

To become something more, sometimes we must subtract and become less. The world-class body-builder was not gifted with a pre-sculpted and defined physique; years of discipline and self-sacrifice, and blood-sweat-tears carved away at the layers, chipped away the extras, and chiseled away all excess; only then could the results of the definition beneath, surface to the top. The increase is revealed after the loss. To advance, you can’t stay where you are. The very definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting a different or greater result.

Soldiers and body-builders are not born, they are made. The same is true of any profession or calling, or of becoming men. The conditions, influences, and decisions stitch together the fabric of greatness—the raw materials that talent puts on the field. So if all men are made, who made you—God or man?

To become something “more useful” may even require curing. Not in the term of being made absent of abnormalities, but by having been changed into something stronger by being subjected to a process, usually an exposure to a force that reconditions a raw material by breaking it down to rid it of imperfections.

To become what you were meant to be, you must be shaped and molded as clay on the Potter’s wheel. Only in the Master’s hands will the vessel take form. But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. (Isaiah 64:8)

Without exception, all men have a maker. Even the “success story” that claims to have pulled himself up by his own bootstraps and professes to being a self-made man, is in reality a product of his conditions, influences, and decisions. While he may have worked extremely hard to get where he is, the actions were driven and reflect the conditions set by man and the influences of man; therefore he is not self-made—he is simply man-made. True also for the one that readily credits or blames other men for his own condition and decisions; not that mentorship, coaching, and counseling are detrimental, but if they are man-centered then their results are man-made.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…. (Genesis 1:26) From the very beginning, God establishes his desire for us to be fashioned by Him, not man. To boldly acclaim that we have been fiercely made as His creation, standing firm in the knowing that we are deliberately developed for His purpose and plans, to seek to endure the extremes that forge us into His likeness so we may rightly present ourselves a living sacrifice to Him, and to humbly submit ourselves to be manipulated and molded under His influence and at His hand.