My Bucket List

I'm a list maker.  I make grocery lists and to-do lists and lists of gifts to purchase.  All kinds of lists.  I began this week with a rather lengthy to-do list, and have added quite a bit to the list as the week progressed, so I'm left today with a lot on my list that is yet-to-be-accomplished.

I remember making a list when I was in high school.  These days we would call it my bucket list.  Back then it was just a list of things I wanted to do or to accomplish in my life.  I don't know what ever happened to that list, and I really don't remember everything that was on the list. 

There are a few items on the list that I do remember.  One of the items on the list was to learn to play classical guitar.  That hasn't happened.  There was also something on the list about travel.  I could put a check mark by that one.  We've had some amazing travels. To London, Edinburgh, York (not New York, although I've been there, too. York, England, in this case, one of my favorite cities!), Paris, Zurich, Milan, Tokyo, Sidney, Melbourne - just to name a few!  Travels all over this country, as well.  And Jerusalem, one of my favorite travel memories of all time. 

Last summer I checked an item off my travel bucket list by visiting Arizona and Oklahoma, the last two states I had not yet visited.  Now I have spent time in all 50 states at least once. As far as "the list" is concerned, when it comes to travel, I have actually far exceeded my expectations.

I do remember that my list included this phrase on the list:  to be happy, and to make someone else happy, too.  That one I can definitely consider a success.  I have a happy life.  I am a happy person.  I have a happy marriage.  My life isn't perfect or without its challenges.  In this journey through life, there have been potholes.  A lot of potholes. Some really deep potholes. But it's a happy life. There is joy in the journey!

If I were to make a bucket list in this season of life, it would be different from the list I made years ago.  Sneaking up on 66 gives me a different perspective on life than I had at 16!  I have a different list of wants and want-tos these days, for myself as well as for my sons and my grandsons.  Not too long ago I made a list of some of those desires. This is not so much a bucket list as a prayer list, one specifically directed toward my family.  When I wrote this list, I divided it into two parts.  The first part, the "A" list, is the most important of all desires I have for them.

This is what I'm praying for my family:

• a passionate love for God and His Word.
• an awareness of His grace.
• a personal and growing relationship with God through His Son.
• to know the life and power of God's Word.
• to love others and treat them with kindness and respect.
• to be reflections of God's glory, to glorify Him in all things.

There's a "B" list as well.  It includes things like laughter and friends, good health, a life-long romance with a spouse who loves Jesus, financial freedom.

These lists may not be a bucket list in the truest sense, but they reflect the desires of my heart, for those I love most in this life as well as for myself.  As we go through life, we each may have lofty dreams and goals.  We may accomplish much in the world's eyes.  We may be well-educated and have a long list of degrees and accomplishments attached to our names.  We may be well traveled.  We may receive much.  It will mean little unless this list has become reality in our lives.

"For this reason also......we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God."  (Colossians 1:9-10  NASB)