Originally posted on Oct. 10, 2005

This was the question posed by the book I'm reading. He asked me to set down the book, pull out my journal and start an inventory of what I want out of life. The challenge was to not stop at the answers I can rattle off. "I want a healthy marriage. I want a thriving ministry. I want to be happy." The challenge was to go deeper - what specifically do I want out of life?

The point was to take an introspective look at where I am right now, then to set down my journal and come back to it in a week or two and do it over again. And do that over and over again for some time. The goal is to watch over time how your journey unfolds. What do you accomplish quicker than you thought you would? What seemed less important to you over time? And so on...

"Stop reading. Put the book down. What you are about to write on that paper is infinitely more important than anything else I have to say in this book."

So in order to interact with the book and glean whatever wisdom I can from it, I followed his instructions. I thought my pen would flow for hours. I thought about all of the things I wanted out of life and then tried to go deeper. I thought I would be very pleased with my list. So I pulled out my journal, wrote four categories - spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical, clicked my pen and went to town.

And I got about 20 lines down and I was spent. Now, that may very well be more lines than most people would get to, but I was really disheartended by what I was unable to write. In my life, have I been so busy that I can only go 20 lines before being out of goals and dreams?

For the next week or so I'm going to devote 10-15 minutes a day on this list. I'm going to think about everything. None of it will be set in stone, and I'm not going to use the list to make any sort of life decisions yet, and I'm going to continue relying on God to direct my life, but I think there's value in thinking about what you want out of life. I think that simply devoting time to thinking about the future can help reveal the next step in your life spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and physically.

Care to join me? How many lines did you get through before it became a hard task to complete? Were you satisfied with your list? Do you think there's value in doing these types of things, or are you turned off by looking ahead?

Labels: Jesus

So I've decided that the following words need to be permanently removed from America's vocabulary in the interest of emotional health:

Fine.
Nothin'.

As in:
How are you doing? Fine.
What's up? Nothin'.

Or my favorite:
How are you doing? Nothin'.

Labels: Jesus