A Whole New List of Life Goals
I have recently come to the realization that I ran out of dreams to accomplish, new things to chase. While some, like teaching French or working with AIDS orphans from Africa, have been checked off, others have faded as I have grown and matured in my own journey. One of the funnier examples of this would be my vow never to drink alcohol! After high school, living in Christian community in Europe helped me let go of this specific area of self-imposed legalism.
But here I am, at a bit of a crossroads in life; and frankly, I’m finding myself in a place I never expected to be. Leaving high school, my hope was to bypass college, find a nice girl, and become a full-time missionary in China. But thank God he had better plans! I can’t imagine jumping into that life right now.
As humans we are SO stubborn, slow to change and rarely open to a radical transformation from above. Yet, when we open ourselves to the work of the Father, we find that the pictures we used to have of ourselves no longer fit the men and women we have become. This, my friends, has been my experience the past two months. I was trying to make everything in my life fit into a box that could no longer contain who I had become, and am continuing to become as I pursue the Creator.
Thus, I’ve decided to scrap my whole list of goals, expectations, and aspirations in life. Granted, my values and principles are still the same and my neo-fundamentalist approach to Scripture has not budged. But, in terms of some of the adventures, dreams, and random items I’d like to chase after and check off my list…everything has been made new, and thank God! The past five years have been so formative in my spiritual journey and general outlook on life that the dreams of my future seem a little boring – and I have the same obligation to them as I do to my dream of becoming a cartoonist at Disneyland or an Astronaut!
So, over the course of the next few weeks I will be adding more to the list, hammering it out so I can commit to it. Here are some of the things I’ve come up with so far. It’s a good start, and each has to do with a personal dream, personal fear, or personal aspiration. As I grow older, get married, and have a family, I look forward to bring others into the adventure.
- Go skydiving
- Pet a wolf
- Publish a book
- Go to Antarctica, the only continent I have not visited
- Speak 6 languages fluently (other than English)
