4jlkelly

Category: Intentional

  • Cartography- a word that gets you where you need to be like Steve Thomason

    Cartography- a word that gets you where you need to be- like Steve Thomason

    cartographer

    I didn’t know what a cartographer was until I looked up the word ‘mapmaker’.  Cartography (from Greek χάρτης khartēs, “map”; and γράφειν graphein, “write”) is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.

    I’ve always thought of life as a journey. God has moved me around a lot, I’ve been scattered and gathered. He’s called me out then shown me the way to go. His word is our map and His Spirit our compass. But often it’s God’s people who help explain the directions.

    This year God connected me to “cartographer” Steve Thomason.  His visual art-theology website was like mousing into Disneyworld. Where do you go first? It’s wonderful. It’s deep yet simple. It’s thought provoking teaching from a authentic and vulnerably courageous voice. I’ve learned so much from Steve.  He is a map-writer that communicates spiritual direction effectively. And he’s not afraid if you see things differently – he loves Jesus and he loves God’s people.

    Like a map, Steve Thomason points to the direction of exciting things.  Look, over here at what the Bible Project is doing at this video on HOLY.   Or like a Scout he lets you into his personal journal to read his journey notes on the current scenery of how his PhD dissertation-Missional Spirituality in the Suburbs– is going – I can’t wait to refer to him as Dr. Thomason-so cool.  He even lets you into the ‘situation room’ that place we see in the White house on the TV dramas where the top secret stuff is happening. He’s brave enough to let us know he’s ‘living with disagreement and mapping out that conversation’.  Someone pointed him to Brene’ Brown’s TED talk and he put “the power of vulnerability” on the map for me.  Thank you Steve.

    We all want maps. I hate wasting time and getting lost, don’t you? We want to know where to go, which way to turn, what’s a seriously dangerous dead end or an exquisitely glorious lookout.  And YOU’VE been somewhere I want to go. We all need to Map-Write more. We all need to be spiritual Cartographers who model ways that communicate the truth of Jesus Christ and the journey of spiritual transformation in Him and tell about the practical places to find it in God’s word or through God’s teachers.

    Don’t keep the good news to yourself, be brave and share it.

    How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!” Romans 10:14-15

    PLEASE, post a comment if you have something to point us to.

     

    FURY Book Two ECHO by JL Kelly
    FURY book two ECHO by JL Kelly http://amzn.to/1KMrLlv

    Now available.

     

  • pre-game intentionality Romans 12:1-2

    So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2
    The Message

    in·ten·tion·al
    adjective
    done on purpose; deliberate.

    The glorification of the word busy is something I recently determined needed to be stopped.  But how?  i still have a great deal to do, more ‘to do’ than time to ‘do it’ in.  And all this ‘busyness’ just as the definition determines does keep me occupied.  And I spend my most valued commodity: time-immersed in this unintentional busyness with nothing but the sweat on my brow to show for it at the 11th hour and then i’m too exhausted to do what really matters.  It’s frustrating.  That we are all so ‘well adjusted to our culture that we’re fitting in without even thinking about it’ as Romans 12 warns us.   Living life  ‘without even thinking’ is the chaos the world seems to lock us in and it’s mantra is ‘I’m busy’. Doing what?  All this stuff.  What stuff?  I don’t know, life stuff.  I don’t know is the problem.  We’re thoughtlessly going about life. Stuck in unintentional busyness.  And we do glorify it, constantly. “I’m so busy!”   And as I considered the words of Romans 12:1-2 thoughtfully, the first step is to re-focus.  To fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ instead of all this thoughtless doing and recognize what He wants from me.  Today, I was determined to change.  First step-intention-get serious about it with some thoughtful pre-planning so tomorrow I don’t start the bad habit all over again which Eugene Peterson describes as our cultures’ immaturity problem.  Fixing my attention on God I asked for change from the inside out.  Knowing God is the One capable of re-ordering my thinking (knowing the truth instead of believing the lie), feeling (understanding this is God’s will for me & trusting Him) and doing (committing to it actively) and that God alone will bring out the best in the way He uniquely designed me–we’re talking about His plans (prayer).   God is lovingly calling me to pursue time with Him so we can figure this strategy out together.  So we’re in the pre-game of this living life ‘with much thought’ intentionality of seizing the day-Carpi Diem.   It’s the call to give our time to God as an offering (something we offer up that has a cost associated with it) and let Him make the most of the minutes.   Because the command is accompanied with the promise- we will recognize God’s will.  We’ll get direction.  We’ll be driven by God’s purpose and God will bring out the best of us.   Be intentional.  It’s a high calling.