Bucket List

Have you ever said, “Oh, I have that on my bucket list,” or, “I’m going to try and do that before I die”?

Most everyone has things that they would love to be able to do on this earth before they have to leave it.  For me, I have two “major” ones, visit the Coral Reef in Australia and go out west where there is nothing but flatlands.  And maybe if there is time, I’ll visit some place with valleys, fields, rivers, and snow topped mountains. *Grin*  

I have talked about dreams, hopes, visions, goals and resolutions before, but God has been challenging me lately to look past what I can see and grasp for a higher calling, a higher purpose.   For me, I’m not sure what that is or what that looks like, but today I listened to a sermon called Chasing God.  He was talking about how our life on earth is the only chance we get to live by faith.  Once we die it will be all “seeing”.  In Hebrews it says it is impossible to please God without faith.

What has God called each of us to accomplish on this earth?  Each of us, as Christians, has a common purpose that He created us for – to glorify Him and cultivate a relationship with Him.  Actually, the more I meditate on John 15, the more I realize that maybe chasing after Jesus is all that really matters.  But what does God want to do with you as an individual?  He uses each of us for His purpose.  Each of us has a unique calling. 

Dreams and desires are not a bad thing themselves, for God can direct us through them if we surrender our lives to Him and ask Him to do so.  But the question is, have we done that?  Have we asked Him to change our desires and dreams to live the life he wants us to live?  The hardest part about this though is total surrender.  Have we totally, with no desire of our own, totally surrendered our lives to Him?  He may give back what we give Him and He may not, but what we can take comfort in is that if He does keep what He gives us, we can expect Him to give us something so much bigger and better than we could ever imagine.

So let’s try and look at our bucket lists from a new perspective.  Go to God in prayer and ask Him what He wants to do through us, in us and with us.  I mean, if we were to be totally honest with ourselves, how many of those things on that list are we actually going to accomplish?  So why not replace them with things we can actually do?  

Truthfully, I am still working on this, especially the surrender part.  I have not been able to actually go to God and honestly say, “What do you want to do in my life?  I’m willing to do whatever you ask.” because I am still clinging onto my own dream.  I pray that as this month comes to an end in a couple short weeks, that I will be able to honestly and with an open surrendered heart ask God what His will is for my life.  I pray many others will join me as well.