Here's One for Your Bucket List

Do you have a bucket list? You know, goals you hope to accomplish before you “kick the bucket.” Lots of people talk about their bucket lists. The website www.bucketlist.org claims to have over 100,000 members, with almost 2 million goals.

You can sign up, list your goals, and then check them off as you complete them. Featured goals right now include – paint a mural; visit Mount Yoshino, Japan; celebrate Holi in India; get a job as a singer; meet Chuck Norris; and learn how to surf.

What’s great about a bucket list? Well, it’s exciting to make learning to hang glide or visiting the Great Wall of China or ordering a meal in French part of your life’s ambition. We all accomplish more, travel farther, and live more fully when we work toward goals.

I do have a couple concerns about bucket lists. One is that a lot of the goals seem driven by self-indulgence rather than serving God or others. Sure, it’s cool that you want to hike the Appalachian Trail or do a set of stand-up comedy. But maybe we Christians ought to aim higher.

 My other concern is, bucket lists often seem based on the assumption that this life is all you get, so you better cram as much adrenaline-fueled excitement into it as you can. Because one day it’ll all be over.

This is not a Christian outlook. Our best life is not now, no matter how many languages we learn or parachute jumps we make. The Scripture says there’s a new heaven and a new earth coming, when all things are made new and King Jesus reigns in glory. All of us who belong to Him have a future beyond our imagination - full of excitement and learning, discovery and exhilaration. One day our sin natures will be a thing of the past, and with minds and bodies remade in His image, we will be perfectly tuned to the will of our Savior.

So here’s one from my eternal bucket list. It’s not a vague wish, or a dim aspiration. It’s a promise made by my Lord. Meet Jesus face-to-face and begin to explore His land. Isaiah recorded the promise like this: Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar (33:17).

Nobody has a bucket big enough to contain the love, joy, and peace that we’ll experience together with the Lord.