Life-Giving List
“A Life-Giving List is a guide to practice delight in the gifts God has given. Nothing is too trivial or too extravagant.”
Practice
Creating a Life-Giving List | Organize the list in three distinct columns
People: List those who breathe life into you.
These are people whose company you genuinely enjoy. Note whether they are local or remote, as connecting with them may require budgeting time or money.
Places: Identify locations that serve as “thin places.”
These are places where connection with God comes easily. These can range from a specific chair in your home to a destination like Assisi, Italy.
Activities: Include both “micro” and “macro” activities.
Micro activities might take thirty seconds and cost nothing, such as rubbing a dog’s floppy ears or eating a piece of chocolate. Macro activities might involve a multi-day fishing trip or a silent retreat.
Download a Life-Giving List Template at CapableLife.com
Using a Life-Giving List | Use the list in three specific ways
Reactively: When anxiety hits, our minds often become rigid and lose imagination.
Having a pre-written list allows us to bypass the need for creativity in moments of stress. We can simply select a micro-activity to shift our focus.
Proactively: Intentionally go on a hunt for God’s goodness each month.
Calendar and budget for life-giving experiences. If we do not schedule time for joy and connection, the demands of life will crowd them out.
Worshipfully: The list transforms hobbies into holy ground.
As you engage in the activity, intentionally pause to thank God for the gift. Whether tasting chocolate or hiking a mountain, the act becomes a liturgy of gratitude.
The invitation of Jesus to “love your neighbor” is misaligned if we hear that we should care for our neighbors, friends, family, or coworkers at the expense of caring for ourselves. This unhealthy approach can generate anxiety about our performance rather than abiding as the Beloved.
Steve Cuss is the founder of Capable Life and a trusted voice on the impact of anxiety on our emotional, mental, and spiritual life. The focus of his writing and work has helped people become more attuned to the reactivity in and around us, “Reactivity displaces our awareness of God, making us feel that everything depends on our self. However, by intentionally placing ourselves in the path of things we love, we open our souls to God’s perfect love.”
We can miss the gifts and blessings God gives for our enjoyment. Steve shares an invaluable perspective on the unhealthy potential within us: “We can view ourselves more as God's employees than as God's children.” He continues, “The early church father Bernard of Clairvaux warns us to ‘not be more generous than God.’ Humans can become canals if we’re not careful: everything that flows in flows out, and we are left empty. God, in contrast, is a reservoir: God always gives out of the overflow and abundance.”
A practice to cultivate a life of receiving God’s love and loving our neighbors out of the overflow and abundance, is to build a Life-Giving List. What is a Life-Giving List? Steve describes it this way: “A Life-Giving List is a comprehensive inventory of the specific people, places, and activities that encourage you in feeling blessed, human, and fully alive.” A Life-Giving list is a two-part practice: Creating the List and Using the List.
Steve Cuss is an author and host of the Being Human podcast. He is the founder of Capable Life and has served in a variety of pastoral roles for 26 years. When Steve is not working, you can find him laughing with his family, knee-deep in a trout stream, or trying a guitar he cannot afford at a local music store.
