What’s on your bucket list? If you Google it, you will find the top ten items given in a survey. I was pleasantly surprised that the top of the list was: changing someone’s life for the better!

If the term “bucket list” was around in Jesus’ day, I thought about what the apostles might have had on their lists. I guess it would include items like survival, protection for their families, and having enough food from day to day. Their lists would certainly look nothing like ours. But what about Jesus’ list?

• Reaching all people with the Good News

• Offering all people salvation and eternal life
• Giving all people a world in which to live
• Loving all people beyond their understanding

Such a list makes us see how lucky we are because we are the recipients of all those things from God Himself. While there are material and worldly things we must pursue in order to live our lives to the fullest, we mustn’t forget the life to come. We are not only recipients of Jesus’ bucket list, but we are tasked to make it part of our own as well. If we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this world, His bucket list is ours.

Trips are nice. Material things are great to have. And visiting places around the world would be fascinating. But let’s plan to continue spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ, doing the work He gives me to do, and spreading His love wherever we can.

About the author: Previously the priest at St. Francis of Assisi in Lake Placid for 21 years, Rev. Elizabeth L. Nelson is now the Priest at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in LaBelle.