(Excerpt from Chapter "Living on my summit" from Leona's book-in-progress)
When I have reached one of my goals,
it is good and right to thank God for the achievement, but not to
settle down and bask in my successes. I must keep raising the bar and
moving forward and upward. It is when I stop moving and pressing on
that I become old.
That is why I consult my “bucket list” from
time to time. Is my bucket empty in my advanced years? I would do
well to examine what’s been in my bucket. Have I given up on or
neglected some of the contents, or have some things simply leaked
out? Should I press on to accomplish what’s left in my bucket?
I was curious about the origin of that
analogy and did some online research. “The Bucket List" was
the title of a movie about two terminally ill men and what they set
out to do before they died. It came to mean a list of however many
things you might want to accomplish before your own mortality closes
the door. Before you “kick the bucket,” which is a slang term
that has come to stand for dying. In short, it’s a list you have
made of what you hope to accomplish or do in your lifetime.
But where did the bucket aspect come
from? One source traced it to the Middle Ages when hanging was a
common form of capital punishment. The victim would be taken to an
elevated scaffold with a noose around his neck. He would stand on an
overturned bucket or pail. When the bucket would be kicked out from
under him, his body would drop, the rope would tighten, and he would
be hanged.
In a sense, since a bucket list is a
list of goals to achieve or roles in life or places I would like to
go, or things I would like to do, I could very well ask myself, “Who
put those items in my bucket? Did I? What was my motivation? As a
Christian I should ask, “Have I consulted God and His will and
purpose and plan for my life? Or am I simply on a self-centered ego
trip through life? Are there things that should not be on my list?
Are there valuable things I have omitted?"
In rural China, it is common to see
two heavily loaded buckets being carried by one person. A long pole
is suspended across the shoulders and two buckets in balance are hung
on each end of the pole. It might take two buckets to contain all
that some of us would like to do in one lifetime. There is nothing
wrong with having personal goals and wishes and desires. On the
contrary, it is good and right. I may fill up one bucket with that
kind of list.
Nevertheless, I should balance it in the other bucket
with a list of God’s priorities and purposes for creating me and
calling me to become His child. One bucket may contain temporal
desires; the other, eternal values and desires in sync with the will
of God.
God isn’t about the business of
raining on our parade or taking all the fun out of life. The
Scripture says, “God has given us richly all things to enjoy.”
God created the world and everything in it for man. In the Psalms we
read, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the
desires of your heart.” God is an over-blesser, always generous to
give us more abundance than we can ask or imagine. God’s storehouse
of goodness and mercies is overflowing. The bucket list of how He
wants to favor His children is a lot weightier and richer and a
greater treasure than anything we could think of to put on our own
bucket list of “to do’s or to be’s.”
I encourage myself to be more
concerned with God’s bucket list for my lifetime, however short or
long it may be according to His sovereign plan. The question I should
ask myself is not, “Have I accomplished all I want to do from my
bucket list?” I can’t go wrong with continually praying, “Lord,
I want Your will to be done in my life on earth as it is in heaven.
Show me how to fulfill Your bucket list for my life!”
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