Last year, on Saturday 12-29-12 I entered the following bucket list post for my look into 2013. Here is what I said:James 4:13-16 ESV “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.”
Every one of us will have an appointed time to die and after that we will all face judgement from our Lord Jesus Christ. This very fact got me thinking about a bucket list for 2013. It is not so much as planning to die, but things that I really want to focus on in the next 12 months to come. Things that I think are seriously important:
My Bucket List for 2013:
1. Read thru the Bible in a year (I am currently 2 months behind, but getting closer)
2. Lead 12 people to Christ (at least one a month) (I know of 4 for sure and not sure how many more this side of heaven)
3. Love my wife and family more and serve them more – (Check)
4. Buy a homeless person dinner (FAIL, however, we did support a family that was in need during the holidays)
5. Spend more time teaching, loving, training and hanging with my wife and three kids (Check)
6. Mentoring (Check and triple check)
7. Take random road “day trips” with my family (Check)
8. Train and run for my third marathon (Check)
9. Eat better, exercise more and make the wise choices (I will give myself a C+, without the Marathon it would have been a “C-“)
10. Read more with my wife (give myself a C+)
11. Grow deeper friendships (feeling blessed with this thanks to Men of Faith and Lance, of course)
12. Apply biblical truth every day to my life, my wife’s life and my children’s life (more family devotions). (One of my accountability partners put the rubber to the road on this one with me by challenging to hold my integrity to my every day life application – thus fulfilling this challenge)
What are some of yours?
Blessings in 2013,
Dante
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Happy New Year,
Dante, Lance & Gary!!!
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The hardest part about this website is that Lance and I (and Gary who is now home with Jesus) have to look at this website as a constant reminder of accountability. That is, our wives, friends, and family are reading this. They see us daily and can call us out on this and they can even challenge us to live lives more worthy and to be even more accountable in life.
So as 2013 comes to a close, I have a few challenges for you:
- The demands of life are inescapable, therefore, measure your time more carefully and prioritize what’s most important: God, Family, Church, Work and Community
- The pressures of life are, at times, overwhelming, therefore, measure your friendships and accountability more closely (if people were to look at your life and social calendar and check book on a jumbo screen at your most favorite sporting event and or Times Square – would they say that God matters most? That Jesus shines through? That the Holy Spirit guides us each day?
- The family unit is exhausting (a lot of the time), therefore, live like it is your last day, love like it is your last day and serve like you love Jesus on your last day
- Maybe you are divorced, single and/or widowed, therefore, stop trying to serve self (what’s in it for me) and allow God to fill those places by serving His will and His Kingdom and His plans for your life (He does have plans for each of us)
- Maybe you are married and embittered or frustrated or in a rut that you cannot get out of (like a dog chasing its tail), therefore, turn to God’s will for your life. Center your life, your marriage, your job your everything-ness on Jesus Christ. Make him your center point and see what 2014 brings you.
- __________________________________, therefore, ________________________________ (fill in some of yours)
I will leave you with this to begin 2014 with:
Lamentations 3 (ESV) Great Is Your Faithfulness
3 I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; 2 he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; 3 surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. 4 He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; 5 he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; 6 he has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago. 7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; 8 though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; 9 he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked. 10 He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; 11 he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; 12 he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow. 13 He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; 14 I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long. 15 He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood. 16 He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; 17 my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness[a] is; 18 so I say, “My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the Lord.” 19 Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! 20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: 22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[b] his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” 25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. 26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. 27 It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. 28 Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; 29 let him put his mouth in the dust— there may yet be hope; 30 let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults. 31 For the Lord will not cast off forever, 32 but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; 33 for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men.