"The world is peppered with people who can coax small seeds of inspiration into richly flowering ideas that put humankind on a better path. And then there's that guy in Des Moines."

So begins the news report about a recent police chase in Iowa that took an intriguing turn.

Early one morning, a trooper with the Iowa State Patrol had attempted to pull a man over—but he "stepped on the gas and triggered what turned into a 10-to-15-minute pursuit."

The chase finally ended when the cars got off the freeway, and "a pit maneuver forced the fleeing car and driver to a stop near a Des Moines elementary school."

So what caused the driver to speed away from his traffic stop? "[T]he 46-year-old at the helm of this idea told authorities that leading police on a chase was just something on his Bucket List."

Understandably, this reason isn't given very often—one of the local sergeants "told the Associated Press he'd never heard such an excuse" in almost 30 years of law enforcement work.

Potential Preaching Angles: Hopefully not many of us have a dream of being chased by police, but we do all have dreams and goals and "bucket lists." As we think on them, however, we need to see how they align with God's Word and, ultimately, hold them loosely. After all, "[i]n their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps" (Prov. 16:9).