Dare to dream. Think big, but even more than this let God inspire you because sometimes our own dreams just aren’t big enough. Then once we have these dreams we can actually make them happen- because with God we can. It first takes coming up with the ideas, then asking God to help us come up with goals and steps we can take to reach them.
I feel like personally I have a big imagination and I am constantly daydreaming and thinking of things that I want to do yet it sort of just stops there and stays as a dream and I never really do anything with it. Something that I’ve never really thought of doing yet, and after talking with a few teammates/squadmates who have inspired me, is making a bucket list. And maybe there is a better term we can use for it, I don’t know, but we will just leave at that for now. Thus, I have started creating my bucket list for things that I want to accomplish in life. And while there are some silly/personal wishes I also really want to include God in helping me to build my list (and with a few things I think he already has). But what one of my teammates Kaili has shown me is that goals are of great importance- especially ones that are measurable to track your progress/growth. So I started a list of goals for this year on the World Race. Here are some of them:
1. Write out at least 100 gifts/things I’m thankful for each month
2. Listen to a worship song every night before I fall asleep
3. Do at least 10 mins of intentional listening prayer a day
4. Wake up each morning at least an hour early and do a daily devotional. Underline/write down what I think God is specifically pointing out for me for that day
5. Be completely satisfied in God’s love for me and not others’ – letting go of people pleasing and idolizing relationships
6. Push myself physically (run/do some sort of workout) every day except on our off days
7. Pray over my teammates/squadmates
8. Pray for those at home/not on Race and for the world
9. Memorize a verse/part of scripture each month
12. Develop life mission statement by end of race
13. Step out in faith and be bold – try new things, step out when I feel God urging me yet I am uncomfortable
14. Learn more about my own and others’ spiritual giftings and be more open/unafraid of the spiritual realm
15. stay engaged and involved (try using the language of where i am as much as possible)
16. keep my eyes open and be aware of all possibilities to serve
And I am still working on developing this list but it has already helped me so much to stay focused, to grow and to help me accomplish what I want. And goals are what can be used to help make your visions in life come true. So with this in mind I have started creating my bucket list and from there I will start making goals for how I can actually make these possible. So here we go:
1. Run a marathon
2. Do a full triathlon
3. Go to Iceland and see the Northern Lights and swim in the Blue Lagoon
4. Adopt
5. Paint a giant mural
6. Have a flower shop- do something cool with it like if you buy flowers you get others free that you must make sure you give to a stranger
7. Start something- program/ministry (God’s gonna have to give me a lot more direction on this one)
8. Plant a huge garden
9. Help my little sister Lauren open her dream preschool
10. Backpack the Tahoe rim trail
11. Spend the night at an aquarium
12. Learn to surf
13. Learn to play guitar
14. Go to largest butterfly conservatory
15. Go to India and Nepal
16. Do another year of missions abroad (whether this is all at once or pieced together)
17. Write a novel (its national write a novel month and so our team decided to do this for November)
18. be fluent at at least one other language
19. learn all of the constellations
20. get married and raise a family centered on Christ
21. live in an impoverished area and build community/create change/share Christ’s love there
…
This is my list for now, but i will keep updating this list on this page as more come up. I have been so inspired and have found so much joy in making my bucket list. I love dreaming and even better than that is actually making dreams a reality. And we have a God that is so much bigger and greater than we can imagine so why not go big? I encourage you to also make a bucket list. And I’d love you to share some of yours because I love hearing about them and I want to help make others’ wishes come true. We can all help each other out!
