My Bucket List [God Willing]

I've come to realize that I have a lot of pet peeves.  Most of them aren't that serious so I almost wouldn't want to call them pet peeves - just mild annoyances.  And one of these categories of annoyances can best be exemplified by something I've written about on this blog before: the phrase "traveling mercies."

It's not that I dislike the concept of praying for the Lord to keep a person safe as they journey from Point A to Point B - of course I'm in favor of that.  It's just the PHRASE.  It makes no sense!  What is a 'traveling mercy'?  Who on earth came up with that as the phrase that would be spoken by Christians everywhere to denote God's protection while in a moving vehicle?  I won't expound on this because it's not the point of my blog today: but the principle demonstrated here is that there are certain expressions said in the world today where I love the IDEA behind the expression, but the phraseology bothers me.

Which brings me to today's topic: the Bucket List.

For those who don't know, a bucket list is a phrase popularized by a 2007 Rob Reiner film titled [wait for it] "The Bucket List" where two terminally ill men make a list of all the things that they want to do before they die [or 'kick the bucket'], and then set out to do those thing.  This idea was then popularized in mainstream culture, and people began creating their own "bucket lists" that are now posted all over the internet.  I began thinking about bucket lists because there was something about the concept that I liked - setting goals, thinking big, striving to achieve.  But, for me personally - just like 'traveling mercies' - the name definitely leaves something to be desired.  "Kicking the bucket" is just such a final, end-like-sounding term for a life step that is actually just a beginning.  We're actually just living the "pre-life" here on this earth - the actual life begins at the moment we die, and where we spend that life depends completely on how we've dealt with our sin problem here on earth.

But that's another blog post.

I tried to think of an alternate name for "bucket list" for a while today - but everything that I came up with sounded too Annoying-Christian-Hallmark-card-y, so I think I'll just suck it up and get over the name.

But then I started thinking more about this, and realized that there's an element of the CONCEPT of bucket lists that can create tension within our Christian faith.  See, by definition, bucket lists are very "me-focused."  This is a list of things that *I* want to do before I die, these are *MY* goals, this is what *I* desire to achieve... and oftentimes as believers we forget that our lives no longer belong to us.  We no longer have the right to decide what we want to accomplish with our lives - because they are no longer our lives.  "For you are not your own - you were bought with a price," says the author of 1 Corinthians [6:19].  That sounds like slavery, doesn't it?  Yup.  Hence Paul often referring to himself as "a bondslave of Jesus Christ." [e.g. Romans 1:1]  True, full, Biblical Christianity isn't just making a mental assertion that you believe in certain facts laid out in the Bible, and it doesn't stop at receiving your get-out-of-hell-free card when you choose accept the free gift of Christ's righteousness to take the place of your own sin.  True Biblical Christianity as depicted in the Bible is trading a life for a life.  It's saying, "okay Jesus - you gave your life for me, and now I give my entire life back to you.  I am no longer [insert name here] - that man/woman is dead.  You're in charge, you call the shots, you give the directions and I follow them.  You aren't just Savior, you're Lord."  That's the way it's intended to work.  The awesome thing about God, though, is that His choices for us are actually better than anything we could have chosen for ourselves.

But that's also another blog post. 

Here's where the tension can arise though - what if God's plan for us doesn't include some of the things that we have on our own personal bucket lists?  We all have them, whether we've taken the time to write them down or not.  What if we desire to attend an Ivy League school - but God's plan for us involves attending a local community college that may not necessarily be as strong academically?  What if [dare I say it] we desire to get married, but God's plan for our lives requires us to remain single?  Will our faith and our trust in God waver if He doesn't see fit to orchestrate our lives according to our own wants - and do bucket lists potentially set us up for disappointment if God chooses to move in a different direction?

Maybe.

But on the other hand - having no goals or aspirations doesn't seem to line up Biblically either.  I've heard many people quote the famous passage from Proverbs 29:18 - "without vision, my people perish."  I've heard the phrase [though not in the Bible] that says "if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time."  Using a Biblical example, the apostles were driven men - planning, going, making moves - desiring to see God move in certain ways and then taking action on their part to facilitate Him being able to do so.  They had goals, plans, desires.  Yet on the OTHER hand - I have a hard time seeing Peter, Paul and John sitting around with papyrus and ink saying "okay, so, before I die - I want to go cliff diving."  But hey - you never know! :)

Yes, I'm aware that I now have three hands.

I think that the solution in all of this is not an either-or, but a both-and.  I do believe that it's a good thing to have goals, desires and dreams - so in that sense, I'm all for bucket lists to help bring clarity and order to what our hearts' desires truly are.  But at the same time, we need to make sure that we aren't taking His place as Lord of the Bucket List [hey, a new name of God!]... and that our goals and aspirations are surrendered to Him, both the great and the small.


In other words: The Bucket List [God Willing].  Now THAT'S a new title I could potentially get behind.

And what I've found for myself is that the closer I get to the Lord, the shorter my bucket list becomes.  To be honest - I'm at a point now where don't really have anything that I absolutely have to do before I start eternal life.  I just want to be able to say that I've given everything I had for the sake of the gospel, and that I brought as many people with me into heaven as I possibly could.  The rest of my Bucket-List-God-Willing is really secondary.  There isn't anything on this list that will break my heart if I don't get to do it - but it was fun to come up with some things that would be pretty cool if they happened!

So, to end this post, here's my list.  It's still a work-in-progress.  Some of these things are just for fun, others are more serious.  Hope you enjoy and maybe even get inspired to write your own!  And may we echo David's sentiment when it comes to our true heart's deepest desires: "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple" [Psalm 27:4-5].

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My Bucket List [God Willing]

• Go to New Zealand
• Go to South Africa
• Go to Disney World
• Skydive
• Smuggle a Bible [or several]
• Write a book [or several]
• Join a dance team
• Go to the Olympics
• See the Grand Canyon
• Play cricket
• Learn the drums
• Ride "Millennium Force" at Cedar Point
• Write a worship song [or several]
• Learn to breakdance
• Drive on Route 66
• Learn Hebrew & Arabic
• Go on a safari
• Save someone's life
• See the Northern Lights
• See a meteor shower
• Bike a century [100-mile ride]
• Float in the Dead Sea
• Ride the London Millennium Eye
• Give a genuine prophecy from the Lord to another person
• Coach volleyball, softball or basketball
• Memorize at least three entire New Testament books of the Bible
• Donate a total of 5,000 Bibles to Christians in persecuted nations [I'm currently at 215 :)]
• Go to North Korea [yes, really]
• See a solar and a lunar eclipse
• Visit Italy
• Stand at the Four Corners
• Understand the stock market and start investing
• Fly first class
• See an angel
• Own a dishwasher
• Write a play and see it performed
• Go to the Super Bowl
• Lay hands on the sick and witness a miraculous healing
• Learn a martial art/self-defense