Full disclosure – although I’ve been personally living out the idea of a life-giving list for years, I’ve never had a specific term for it. So I want to give full credit to Steve Cuss, a pastor in Broomfield, Colorado for giving me this term.

So, do you have a life-giving list?

Let me set this up. For those of us who lean more to the “type-A” driven mentality, who love to drive initiatives forward, who think big thoughts and jump into delivering on them without first giving too much thought to how much time and energy they will actually take, who see opportunity in every problem and want to help solve it, and on and on – you get the picture – we have, on more than one occasion, come close to, or have actually, burned out. The degree of burnout may have been significant and required drastic measures, or it simply may have been for a few weeks and we needed to sit on a boat in the middle of lake for a few days to simply breathe (been there, done that), yet we swore that we wouldn’t allow this to happen again – can I hear an “Amen!”

What if part of the issue is simply matter of having and employing a life-giving list to allow us to continue to live the life that we believe we are called to live. Now, before I get into the specifics I want to validate my fellow life sojourners who know that their capacity to deliver is broader than many. Who feel a sense of calling for putting themselves out there and owning big projects and other deliverables on behalf of the team. This is in no way a pride thing, in fact, it can at times be a bit of a curse. Yet you feel the weight of responsibility and you know that it is a type of calling on your life, you just can’t not enter into it.

However, you at times (or perhaps consistently) don’t remember that every day has 24 hours for everyone, even you. That there are limits on what you can accomplish, that all of life does not depend on you, that you have only been given a slice of it even though much of it excites you and you want to take more on. And yet you also know that you don’t want to go back to the feeling of burnout either.

You need to embrace your personal life-giving list.

So what is it? It is simply a list of those activities that are life-giving to you. They may be small they may be big. They may cost you nothing, they may be expensive. Some will take you 5 minutes, others will be 2 weeks in length. But they are what you need to enter into to provide you with the energy and clarity that you need to live life well and to be present in all circumstances.

So what does this look like for me.

Simple ones: a walk around the storm-water pond by our house – it takes 20 minutes; 20 push ups; a beer at 4:30 in the afternoon (just one); writing a card to someone to encourage them and mailing it; calling certain people simply to see how their day is.

Longer ones: 40 km bike ride; conversation at a restaurant with nachos and a good friend; working at a coffee shop for a few hours; slow excursion on a pontoon boat to just think; building personal projects at a friend’s woodshop; getting our car repaired and chatting with my mechanic friend during the repair.

Less frequent ones: two weeks at a friend’s cottage; travel to be with friends in Lithuania and doing ministry together.

You can see how unique these are to me, yet even writing these out I can feel the energy coming on.

So what would you put on your list? How could simply inserting these into your daily, weekly and yearly rhythm ensure that you thrive in the context you believe you have been placed in. Simple, yet profound. Embrace your very own life-giving list today.