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The To-Do List

I was cleaning out my old files one day, not thinking of anything in particular. I pulled out old bills, agendas from meetings long ago, and a few folders where I put personal papers I wanted to keep. In one of those personal folders I found an old list I had written when I was younger. I had been given some advice as a young man that I should write down all the goals that were important to me, so that I would be sure to accomplish them. To me, living a life without accomplishment or a sense of striving toward goals would seem almost like not living at all. So at the tender age of thirty-seven I thought about what goals I should be achieving in my life in the near future, and dutifully wrote them down:

1. By the age of forty, earn $42,000 a year
2. Move up to a management position at work
3. Buy a house for my family
4. Build a small boat

I smiled sardonically when I read them becase now, almost twenty years later, I can take stock of the lasting significance of those goals. I did earn the money I wanted, and more; I earned and lost several times that amount, and in the end, have little more than I started with. I moved up in my chosen profession, only to lose my job time after time. I held many management level positions, none of which actually satisfied me for any length of time. The house went to my ex-wife, after our marriage unraveled, and the boat, I cut up and put out with the trash after it developed incurable rot. You see, I had made a list of the things that I wanted, without any consideration whatsoever of what God wanted for me.

The things that have stayed with me over time have been the things that can't be bought, or achieved by one's own effort; the laughter of my children, the miracle of wildflowers in a mountain meadow, the healing power of forgiveness. Even marriage, as it turns out, is a gift of God. When I was not looking at all, God presented me with a wonderful, loving woman who became my wife.

So many of the things I strove for all those years turned out to be hollow, while the things I most care about were simply gifts. Gifts bestowed by God the creator of the universe; a God whose deepest desire is simply to know me, and to be known in return. I have been thinking about another set of goals that will carry me for the foreseeable future, goals that will have some permanence, goals that will positively affect me and all those around me. They are, to know God; to know God; to know God.

Learn more about this author, Wayne Rideout.
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