The movie “The Bucket List” is the story of two men from different backgrounds who met as patients in a cancer ward. They eventually became friends and together made a list of things that they wanted to do before they “kicked the bucket.”

A minister stated that the movie inspired him. At 44 years of age, he was already settling in and had started coasting through life. He realized he was at the halfway point in life and was no longer dreaming of the future. But when he left that movie, he determined to go home and make his own bucket list.

In the first draft, he wrote down 25 big dreams, things like: Celebrate an anniversary in Italy; Take a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land; Fly an F-16 jet; Play Augusta National golf Club; Write a book ( that people actually read);Build my dream home; Go to every Major League Baseball Park with one of my four boys.

The minister said he was amazed how this fun little exercise stirred in him a passion to live a richer, fuller life.

In the light of this, where are we spiritually, speaking? If we stop dreaming and growing and settle into some maintenance and survival mode we will eventually waste away. That sounds harsh, but it’s true. Complacency in any area, including spirituality, leads to a void of purpose, meaning and hope.

Suppose I asked you to complete this sentence. What would you say? “God is…” Allowing for those who disbelieve, many would answer, God is all-knowing, God is righteous, God is creator, God is provider, God is redeemer. And while all those would be right answers, they would still not define God because God is so much bigger than we could ever grasp, let alone define. Even if you declare, “God is loving,” because you’ve experienced that love, you still haven’t come close to grasping how abundant that love is.

The minister, named Chris Hodges, who talked about the Bucket List, said that God is not what he has been, nor is he what he currently is; God is what he could be. In other words, God is bigger. Certainly, God is everything that we have discovered, but he is so much more than we could ever dream or imagine.

Thus, our great need is for a “Spiritual Bucket List.”

The late A.W. Tozer, a popular preacher and bestselling author, once wrote: “A low view of God is the cause of a hundred lesser evils. A high view of God is the solution to 10,000 temporal problems.”

I think there are at least four reasons why we should acknowledge God and live reverently.