Payleitner - What If God Wrote Your Bucket List?

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

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WHAT IF GOD WROTE YOUR BUCKET LIST?

Copyright 2015 Jay Payleitner

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Payleitner, Jay K.

What if God wrote your bucket list? / Jay Payleitner.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-7369-6270-4 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-6271-1 (eBook)

1. Christian life. I. Title.

BV4501.3.P395 2015

248.4dc23

2015013610

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To Paul Gossard,

who knows the way

For 25 years, Ive been given specific assignments and deadlines to seek truth, know truth, present truth, and draw individuals to the truth. In every media imaginable. Print, radio, television, social media, direct mail, video walls, books, periodicals, and public speaking. Even T-shirts, posters, and distributing literature on street corners in Moscow. Thats what happens when you establish yourself as a freelance writer/producer/speaker in the Christian marketplace.

Let me share a few career highlights. Writing the first print ad for Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHayes megaselling Left Behind series. Recording Josh McDowell speaking with a guard in a Soviet-era prison. Being a guest on Focus on the Family . Producing broadcasts featuring Bill Bright, Zig Ziglar, Chuck Colson, Dennis Rainey, Luis Palau, TobyMac, and many other respected Christian communicators. Speaking on behalf of Iron Sharpens Iron, AWANA, MOPS, the National Center for Fathering, and scores of local churches and regional ministries.

I am humbly grateful to the leadership and media teams of all those ministries and many others. Your integrity, passion, and commitment to truth and excellence have forever impacted my life and most assuredly can be found in the pages of this book.

Thank you to my agent and dear friend, Dan Balow. And to the team at Harvest House, especially my patient editor, Gene Skinner. I appreciate your TLC more than you know.

To my growing familyRita, Alec, Lindsay, Randall, Rachel, Max, Megan, Isaac, Kaitlin, Rae Anne, Judah, Jackson, and Emersonyou inspire and motivate me. I love you all.

And to my Savior, Jesus, who went to the cross for each and every one of us. Without your perfect love, none of this makes any sense.

Contents

by Josh D. McDowell

O ur Creator is in the business of creating order out of chaos. God uses lists to help us order our lives and learn more about him. He used a seven-day plan to create the universe. He gave Moses a list on Mount Sinaithe Ten Commandments. Jesus provided a wonderfully useful list of eternal values, the Beatitudes, as a code of ethics for those who would follow him. The nine fruit of the Spirit are listed in Galatians as virtues God develops in every believer. God doesnt want us to obsess about making lists or panic about checking off dozens of specific tasks before we die, but lists can be very handy.

My list-making goes way back. During my first year in college, I drafted a multi-point strategic plan for the next 25 years of my life. It wasnt called a bucket list back then, but my goals were dead serious. I mapped out 50 six-month periods with clear objectives and concrete plans for the next quarter century. My strategic plan ended with me being elected governor of Michigan.

The first step was running for and being elected freshman class president. Check. In the next few months, I tackled a few more objectives. Check, check, and check. The next major item of my strategic plan was a required yearlong research project. I knew it had to be a controversial topic with significant historical, cultural, and legal implications, and I had to knock it out of the park. I also knew that if I was going to invest a year of my life, it would need to be a topic for which I had a personal passion and something to prove.

Those who have heard my testimony wont be surprised to hear the topic I chose for that term paper. At the time, I was still struggling with my mothers death and my fathers alcoholism. Looking for answers, I had turned briefly to religion but found it shallow, phony, and foolish. Thats when I told my English professor I was going to do a serious historical study that wouldonce and for allrefute Christianity as nothing but meaningless fables.

My months of research uncovered a list of 119 separate events and situations I would have to explain away before I could honestly and intellectually reject Jesus Christ. As I studied, my carefully constructed strategic plan started to derail, and the research led me to the place we all need to beat the foot of the cross, acknowledging our sin and asking God to forgive us and clean up our lives.

Since then, my strategic plan has been dedicated to answering Gods call. You might think the plan would be quite complex. But it really isnt. You might even call it my three-point bucket list. In more than 50 years, Ive given thousands of talks and written thousands of pages, and it all comes down to these three points: Get to heaven. Take as many people with me as possible. Enjoy every moment.

This three-point plan still motivates me in all I do. But I can also certainly see how 14 words dont exactly fill a book. Thats why Im glad my friend Jay Payleitner has taken on the challenge of hanging meat on that skeleton. Between the easy-to-read stories and observations, Jay delivers the kind of insight that helps give purpose to our time on earth. I believe any reader who opens their heart and mind to these 52 chapters will discover they are right in line with Gods will for their lives. So keep reading. And be ready to experience the abundant life Jesus promises in John 10:10 when he says, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Y ou know the concept, right? Otherwise you wouldnt have picked up this book.

Briefly defined. A bucket list is quite literally a listwritten down or mulled over in your mindof things you want to do before you kick the bucket.