Spiritual Director · May 11, 2015

Bucket List

Hi Friends:

I have always wanted to drive a semi-truck! I want to sit up high and feel the power of the huge truck going down the highway. To shift all the gears with country music playing and my CB radio sounds awesome! (I know, I need to get out more). I’m not so interested in living out of the truck, however, as I know some of them have beds and living space behind the cab. Yesterday my brother was telling stories of 25 years of driving a semi for UPS. He drives at night and goes from Indianapolis to Louisville or Chicago and returns. I once asked him to meet me somewhere and let me drive, but he reminded me his company does not allow that! I remember as a kid traveling on vacation and trying to get each semi driver to honk his horn!

I live in Crawfordsville, Indiana where we have 4 State highways that merge in town! State Roads 32, 47, 136, and 231!  In addition, we have 2 exits off I-74 and I’m sure all of that was designed around our town having Nucor steel and RR Donnelly (publishers) and many other factories and companies. We have a lot of semi-truck traffic! I don’t care for semi’s in traffic, they can’t accelerate very well and I always want to go around them. As I come into town from these highways I usually pass them but sometimes there is a line of cars behind the semi and I’m stuck. I often thought if I was the semi driver I’d pull over and let people by but they don’t ever seem to think that way!

So driving a semi goes on my “bucket list” where I also have several other things that are important to me before I die: like holding a grand-baby (daughter Emily is 24 and a few years away I hope!), visiting the M and M factory and adding more color to my diet, traveling to see the sights I haven’t gotten to like Mt. Rushmore, Niagara Falls, and Washington D.C. How is your bucket list coming? Are there things you want to do, see, people to meet and be with before the Lord calls you home??

I’m with people all the time on their death bed, or nearing the end of life and not one have said they wished they’d worked more, or spent time away from the family, or worried about things they couldn’t control. No, most want to finish their own bucket lists and have more life to live. You and I do not know about our future or how much time we have left, we just know Who holds that future and Who holds that time. Jesus encourages us often to be ready and alert to His return: “Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”( Matthew 24:42). To me, if I may, what I think Jesus is saying might be: “Live, therefore, live boldly and make each day count. Try, try again, don’t give up. Follow your hearts, use your skills and gifts and passions to meet God’s greatest need around you, love one another and serve me with joy…”

IS ATTENDING THE NATIONAL GATHERING IN JULY ON YOUR BUCKET LIST??  :0) 

VISIT WWW.VIADECRISTO.ORG FOR DETAILS.

ALSO, I’M ATTEMPTING TO REACH CLERGY FROM EACH SECRETARIAT ESPECIALLY ONES WHO MAY BE ATTENDING IN JULY!! IF THIS FITS YOU OR YOUR SECRETARIAT PLEASE EMAIL OR CALL MY CELL. THANK YOU!!!

Pastor Doug Givan

Chaplain

St. Vincent Clay (Brazil)

St. Vincent Seton Specialty (Indianapolis)

dgivan@stvincent.org (email)

“We are so preciously loved by God that no created being can ever know how much and how sweetly and tenderly God loves us.”

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Eric is our current Webmaster and works on the NLS Communications Team. Raised in Judaism, he found Christ and the New Testament at age 16 in a Southern Baptist Church. He searched many denominations for the real church, only to find the Holy Spirit is present in all of them. He's worked for One for Israel, a group of native Israeli believers who are sharing the gospel in the holy land in Hebrew and is part of the only Hebrew speaking seminary in Israel.