The bucket list.....find the joy in your life....

The bucket  list.....find the joy in your life....

In 2007, a movie came out, "the Bucket list".  My husband and I, not big movie goers, decided to go...we enjoyed it, laughing at the amusing parts, crying at the tear- jerking parts, but mostly it created many talking points...as we were looking at what we wanted to do on our "bucket list".....where did we want to travel, what ministries did we want to do....retirement may be approaching....less work, maybe...we had been to China, Mongolia, ....we wanted to travel some more ...where?....what did we want to do with our retirement years....my parents were requiring  more care and watchfulness...

Little did we know at the time, my mother would pass away within two years, his business would change drastically within three, cancer would fatally strike him....the bucket list, forgotten, lay mostly untouched....some things checked off and enjoyed...others, unimportant, in the time we had....

I watched that movie again last night, a whole new perspective....time in short, what is important, what "needs" to be done are all so different now....with both parents gone, a widow, that bucket list is sooooo very different...I laughed again, and then the tears came....for those undone lists, those unmet dreams, those lost to me here....

The phrase I passed over before..."find the joy in your life" resonates over and over...my children are my joy, my relationship with Christ is my joy....not just the doing of things....seeing of sights....oh, I do enjoy the things, the sights, the doing...but they are temporal, not eternal....

What does God have on my bucket list??? What do I need to do....be...that is the question now...two and a half years out from the passing of my husband?

Thank YOU that You have a "bucket list" for each of us...prepared...

Psalm 51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Nehemiah 8:10
Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Psalm 5:11 But let all who take refuge in you be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you.

Psalm 16:11 You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Jesus calling.  October 16

Look to Me continually for help, comfort, and companionship. Because I am always by your side, the briefest glance can connect you with Me. When you look to Me for help, it flows freely from My Presence. This recognition of your need for Me, in small matters as well as in large ones, keeps you spiritually alive.

When you need comfort, I love to enfold you in My arms. I enable you not only to feel comforted but also to be a channel through whom I comfort others. Thus you are doubly blessed, because a living channel absorbs some of whatever flows through it.

My constant Companionship is the pièce de résistance: the summit of salvation blessings. No matter what losses you experience in your life, no one can take away this glorious gift.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.
—Psalm 34:4–6

Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.
—Psalm 105:4

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
—2 Corinthians 1:3–4


"The Time Is Short
Daily Devotional for October 17
From the Writings of Ray Stedman
 
From your friends at
www.RayStedman.org
Read the Scripture: 1 Corinthians 7:25-40

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away. 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

All that Paul says here hangs the words the time is short. Some say this is a reference to the Second Coming of Christ — that Paul expected the Lord to return. It is true that he did look forward to that event occurring in his lifetime, but I view this as a reference to the general brevity of life. The longer we live the more we are aware of how time seems to fly. As someone has said, About the time your face clears up, your mind begins to go. This is the way life seems to be.

But it does not take a Christian to see that; non-Christians can as well. They speak of the shortness of time and their reactions to it is, Well, if we've only got this short a time, then let's grab all we can get of it. Let's live life with gusto. There is nothing beyond, and therefore we've got to get all we can. Their philosophy seems to be: If you are going to he a passenger on the Titanic you might as well go first class. Live it up. Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we shall die. But that is not to be the philosophy of the Christian, as Paul brings out.

Clearly the Christian reaction is: Use this short time for eternal purposes. Be sure that the aim and center of your life is not just making a living, but making a life. That is what he is saying, and that is why he says, let those who have wives live as though they had none. He is not encouraging you to neglect your wife and not fulfill your responsibilities to your children and your home. What he is saying is that we are to keep things in proper focus. Do not let maintaining your home be the major reason for your existence. Do not give all your time to enjoying this present life. There are higher demands and higher challenges to life than that.

Therefore, even marriage, God-given and beautiful as it is, is not the highest choice an individual can make. If some people here choose not to get married so that they might pursue other standards, especially spiritual dimensions of involvement, then they should be affirmed for that. They are making a choice that is right and good and proper and no one should put them down because of it. So his word to us is, Do not let all these things the world around lives for become the center of your life. Joys and sorrows are going to be seen quite differently from the viewpoint of eternity. Success in business is not the greatest aim of life, for all in the world is passing away, even its fame and its glory.

I was in Norfolk, Virginia, and visited the tomb of General Douglas MacArthur. I was interested because I had been an admirer of General MacArthur, having lived during that era when he was the great American hero. I remembered the welcome he received in San Francisco when he finally returned to these shores after World War II, and the ticker tape parades he received both there and in New York. I saw the cabinets with his medals and his memorabilia, the letters he had written at various stages of his life, and some of the uniforms he had worn. They were all gathering dust, and the paint was beginning to peel from the ceiling. As I wandered around I suddenly had a deep sense of the fading glory of earth. I began to compare it with what the Scriptures say is awaiting the believer in Jesus Christ: that, exceeding weight of glory ( 2 Corinthians 4:17) which Paul says is beyond all comparison which is waiting. It is something so fantastic, so mind-blowing, so unbelievable that nothing we know of on earth can remotely be compared to what's waiting for those who have found God's purposes and realized God's fullness in this life. How tawdry all this seemed to me in this tomb: How the glory of MacArthur was as nothing compared with the glory of the simplest believer in Christ. How important therefore it is to pursue that kind of glory rather than the empty baubles that would gather dust in the museums of the world. This is what Paul is talking about here — this world in its present form is passing away.

Thank you, Father, for the hope I have in you, and that nothing in this short life can compare with what you have in store for me. Help me live, not for those things that are passing away, but for those things that will last for all eternity.

Life Application: Whether brief or longer, time is given us by God with a view to eternity. Are we investing this priceless gift in the tawdry and perishable things of earth, or in the timeless, imperishable and invaluable purposes of God's good and perfect will?"