The Bucket List

Of the countless ways to bare one’s soul on Facebook.com, a popular new feature is the “bucket list.” The idea is to send your friends a list of cool things you’ve done, then they can send it back and show you all the cool things they’ve done. At the bottom of one such list I received – which was full of all sorts of impressive globe-trotting adventures – the sender commented, “Life is looking pretty good right now.”

The thought occurred to me: “But how’s the next life looking?” Because no bucket-list accomplishment is going to be worth anything when one passes from this life to the next. Then, the only thing that will matter is how that person responded to Jesus’ offer of eternal life by virtue of His death and resurrection. Sadly, many people miss out on this offer as they race through their limited time on earth, searching for meaning in everything but Jesus.

In his book Eiger Dreams, Jon Krakauer described the sensations a climber experiences on a wall of ice thousands of feet off the ground: “The accrued guilt and clutter of day-to-day existence … is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose, and by the seriousness of the task at hand. At such moments, something like happiness actually stirs in your chest …” Purpose and happiness – that’s what we want. Not just mundane existence, but something meaningful – something to make us feel satisfied.

King Solomon, who had all the riches and wisdom a man could ever want, discovered he was walking a dead-end road without God. “I have seen all the things that are done under the sun,” Solomon wrote. “All of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:14). Reflecting on this meaningless existence, Solomon finally arrived at this determination: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

To fear God is to honor Him as Lord of all, to worship Him, to be in close relationship with Him. That was His intention since the beginning of humankind, and it is possible through Christ, who offers the ultimate fulfillment to man’s longings. “I am the bread of life,” Jesus said. “He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).