My Bucket List

Bucket lists. There are a lot of people posting them these days.  I'm not above them.  In fact, I have a few of my own.  I recognize the pleasure of making a list of things and actually ticking them off to say: "I've seen, I've done, I've conquered."

There's the usual things on mine like: "travel to Asia, learn a second language fluently, write and publish a book, go trekking, eat chocolate every day for a year," etc. But lately I'm realizing that I have a better bucket list.  Okay, maybe not better.  Perhaps more overambitious, more ambiguous, perhaps more somber, but a bucket list nonetheless.

Every day as I wake up I have two little lives that reflect the person that I am.  They reveal my character with all its true flaws.  The longer I live the less naive I am about my faults.  There is no easy escape, I cannot fight these behavioral habits alone.   They require time, attention and divine intervention. I am literally powerless to change some of these weaknesses on my own.

But oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if these areas I struggle with could be changed?  I pull at them from the surface by trying harder, doing better, making new years' resolutions.  But this is like ripping off the leaves of a weed without truly uprooting them.  They come back.  Again.

I need God's Spirit to do work in my heart, daily.  Maybe, just maybe, by the end of this life my rough edges will be smoother, more weeds will be uprooted, and Christ will be more apparent in my thoughts, words, and behaviors.  That's the goal isn't it?  Is a better me, possible?

I'm a bit tired of hiding all my faults behind a veneer of perfection or superficiality so here goes:  

My bucket list of character traits I'd rather do without, and ones I want to have:

1. Be a more contented, joyful person. What if I were content for a change?  As my default? In whatever my circumstance?  Wow.  Imagine.

2. I want to stop seeing the negative in every situation, all the time.  I wear negative lenses through which I seem to view all things.  I am kind of tired of my whining voice that constantly relays every bad thing that happens every day to every listener.  I'm a complaining, moaning, grumbling person by nature.  Could I not just automatically see the positive?

3. Have a posture of thankfulness and gratitude that flows into a spirit of generosity.  Aka: less materialism, less envy, and more giving.  Rid myself of this attitude of entitlement, be more humble and give even at a cost to myself. [Is that like 6 things?]

4. I want to learn patience in affliction.  [Okay, patience in general.  Anyone who sits in front of a microwave cursing the seconds has serious issues with this- aka me].

5. See others' needs as more important than my own.  I'm. So. Selfish.

6. Be less controlling, less of a perfectionist.  [Good luck with this weed God- it goes deep!]

7. Learn how to respond thoughtfully versus react out of emotions.  Oh, never mind, I've accomplished that one.  [Kidding].

8.  I want to be okay with discomfort and abandon this notion that God and His whole world exists to make me feel comfortable. 

Okay.  So this list is not exhaustive.  The more thoughts I think and days I live the more I realize just how innately sinful I am.  I hardly believe for a second I will ever be able to look at this list and simply cross these off, "Done! Prize please!"  I also don't think that God will accept me more or somehow I will be more worthy of Him if I achieve these character attributes.  However, I do dream and hope for a day that my character will be more like Christ.  I cannot wait until heaven when, in seeing Him face to face, I will be made more like Him.  Finally.  I will rest from my flaws which become ever more frustrating, limiting, and burdensome.