Category: Spiritual transformation

  • A Letter to Myself on New Year’s Day

    2026

    I have been reading Genesis 1:1 shaped mostly by my English understanding. Recently, I paused long enough to listen more carefully after seeing a post on the verse. I turned toward the Hebrew, and what I found there has quietly changed how I understand creation, light, and my own becoming.

    “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

    That’s how we usually hear it.

    But the Hebrew reveals something far deeper, something that gently unsettles the idea of a finished moment.

    The very first word of Scripture is
    בְּרֵאשִׁית
    Bereshit.

    It does not open the story with something sealed and complete.
    It opens with movement.

    Not a period, but a threshold.
    Not a closed beginning, but an opening breath.
    Not a finished act, but an unfolding.

    Bereshit.
    In beginning.
    At the start of becoming.

    A more faithful translation would be, When God began to create.

    As if Scripture is whispering, Before there was form, before there was order, before there was anything solid at all…

    The earth was formless and empty.
    Darkness covered the deep.
    And the Spirit of God was hovering.

    Hovering, the way a pen lingers just above the page before the first sentence is written.
    Hovering, the way hands pause over a keyboard, sensing what wants to be born.

    At the start of becoming, God stepped into darkness, into formlessness, into empty space.

    From chaos, God began to create.

    And the first movement of the Creator was not structure.
    Not land.
    Not even the earth itself.

    The first word spoken was light.

    “Let there be light.”

    Not sunlight, which comes later in verse sixteen.
    This is something else entirely.
    Something deeper.

    In Hebrew, the word for light is אוֹר
    Or.

    It is formed by three letters.

    Aleph — א
    Vav — ו
    Resh — ר

    Together they spell light.

    Each letter carries meaning.

    Aleph is strength, source, God Himself.
    Silent, yet immense.
    The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
    The breath before sound.

    Vav is the nail, the connector.
    The joining point.
    Heaven touching earth.
    Meaning linking to meaning.

    Resh is the head, the beginning, direction, purpose.
    The place where movement knows where it is going.

    So light, at its root, is this
    God, the Source, connecting heaven to earth with intention and purpose.

    Light is not merely something God made.
    Light is God releasing His own nature into the void.

    Scripture echoes this truth again in 1 John 1:5
    “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”

    So the first act of creation was not making something external.
    It was God pouring Himself into the darkness.

    And this is where it becomes personal.

    If God’s first creative act was the release of light,
    and if you were made in His image,
    then you were created to carry that same light.

    Not to generate it, but to reflect it.
    Not to manufacture it, but to release it.

    This is why Jesus says, “You are the light of the world.”

    Everything God is by nature,
    you are called to express by assignment.

    Let that land.

    Everything God is by nature,
    you are called to express by assignment.

    God’s light brings clarity.
    Your creativity brings clarity.

    God’s light brings order to chaos.
    Your ideas bring order to confusion.

    God’s light reveals what was hidden.
    Your words, your work, your calling reveal what someone could not see on their own.

    You are not just writing.
    Not just imagining.
    Not just creating content.

    You are releasing light.

    This is why creativity is spiritual.
    Why it is powerful.
    Why it is transformative.

    This is why your ideas matter.

    And this is why resistance comes so quickly, especially in the mind.
    Why halfway through the work, a voice tries to tell you it means nothing.
    Why darkness attempts to return with confusion and doubt.

    But light restores clarity.

    Every time you co-create with God, you are doing what He did in Genesis 1.
    Speaking light into empty spaces.
    Releasing order into chaos.
    And darkness cannot survive where light is given room.

    When God began to create, His first word was light.
    And He did not stop there.

    He embedded that same light in you.

    So when you create, when you build, when you speak life, you are not merely doing work.
    You are fulfilling the Genesis mandate.

    You are a carrier of divine light.

    It is not just what you do.
    It is who you are.

    So go now.
    Release it however you are called.

    Write. Love. Work hard. Trust.


    Happy New Year, You.

    May the Light who hovered over the deep,
    and the Light who entered the world in flesh,
    find every place in you that is waiting to glow.

    Peace to your heart.
    Joy to your creating.
    Gentle wonder to all that is being born in you.

    May it be so.

    Hallelujah.

    JLK

  • The fullness of time- how to enjoy the moment during the Christmas season

    The fullness of time- how to enjoy the moment during the Christmas season

    It has been a day of passing time.

    Of crazy moments, of expanding demands and pressing issues, of too much to do and a scarcity of time, as we creep in traffic, climb phone trees, wait our turn to pay, rushing through the mundane and climbing carnal ladders.

    We need to be first in line but Christ asks us to go last.

    We have demands but Christ asks us to abide in peace.

    Worried with impatience and willful; we do what we don’t want to do and fail to do what God’s divinely assigned us to. At sunset we review and see;

    We’ve profaned the moment in our haste, blind to the inner mystery of Your working.

    Now in stillness we sigh, and release the truth; we covet time for our self.

    Living in scarcity we have failed to trust and believed the lie that God’s love could fail to provide the needed. We empty self and open cleansed hands and lift our faces.

    Whispering now, all sufficient Spirit have more of me.

    Still. Listening. Waiting. Hearts turned and in tune. We hear Love.

    Come.

    Peace, yes this is You.

    Power, yes this is You.

    Hope, yes this is You.

    Rest, yes this is You.

    There is joy, it overcomes weariness in a soul surge of worship.

    Spirit overflowing ready now in cooperation.

    We go, now yoked to Jesus our Rest, Savior, Beginning and End.

    Renewed to serve the Potentate of Time.

    Elisabeth Elliot writes in her book- Love has a price tag: Inspiring stories that will open your heart to life’s little miracles, “treating as meaningless that which is freighted with meaning. Treating as common that which is hallowed. Regarding as mere triviality what is really a divine design. Profanity is failure to see the inner mystery.”

    If you realize you are profaning time. Hit the reset button with these 3 steps.

    Confess and own your bad habits, attitudes, willfull impatience, selfish coveting of minutes and me-time and your fear that God is not sufficient to multiply and provide you daily all that you need to accomplish His purposes.

    Cleanse your soul by accepting God’s forgiveness and inviting “Spirit take more of me.” You don’t need a filling of Spirit, you need an emptying of flesh.

    Come to Jesus in Cooperation by taking up your cross and following where the Potentate of Time and the Beginning & the End will take you. Try to keep a “moment”dialogue through the day as you encounter your flesh rising up in panic, worry, fear, impatience, or self-coveting. Ask to see the lies you believe that engage a wilfullness to profanity (Failure to see the inner mystery of the moment.) Ask to “rest” in each moment that is a divine appointment. Continually worship with thanksgiving in mundane task, the practice of patience, and sharing the gift of the Christmas spirit which is sacrficial giving. “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2

    “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

    christmas-is-not-a-time-nor-a-season-but-a-state-of-mind-to-cherish-peace-and-goodwill-to-be-plenteous-in-mercy-is-to-have-the-real-spirit-of-christmas

     

  • When you walk the road to Emmaus

    When you walk the road to Emmaus

    walk to emmaus

    WHEN YOU WALK THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

    Luke 24:13-35

    Did you hear this alarming news?

    46,471: Drug Overdoses Killed More Americans Than Car Crashes or Guns (CNSNews.com)

    drugs kill
    “Drug overdose deaths are the leading cause of injury death in the United States, ahead of motor vehicle deaths and firearms (deaths),” the Drug Enforcement Agency announced on Wednesday. In 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, 46,471 people in the United States died from drug overdoses, and more than half of those deaths were caused by prescription painkillers and heroin.

    It’s alarming.  A serious wake-up call.  Snoozing is no longer an option when you get this kind of news. That someone you knew, loved, shared life with has overdosed and died. That tragedy became personal this past week as our collegiate son lost a friend to an overdose.

    Questions immediately arose.  Disturbed, that heroin was that close to my son’s inner circle of life, we confronted him with frank questions. Distressed , we worried if we’d been naïve or distracted-majoring on the minors when the unimaginable of heroin was a real threat to his life and never discussed. Distraught, we grieved for his friend’s family. My troubled heart found a place of comfort from Luke’s account of Resurrection Sunday where two disturbed, distressed and distraught disciples found answers.

    The road to Emmaus is a picture of the aftermath of a traumatic experience. 

    Times when you think it’s all just a bad dream and you’re going to wake up but instead you find yourself in the reality of an emotional roller coaster ride you never wanted on and can’t get off.  This is the universal journey when death has come—to a person or a job or a marriage, or your good health, or a dream.  Something has died. And it changes the orientation of life.  What do you do now?

    The two disciples in Luke’s account began to walk home, trying to make sense of it all. Their hopes of the kingdom of God and in the Messiah they had given up everything to follow were ended in a brutal crucifixion. Jesus was dead and buried.

    They wandered home, suspended between yesterday and tomorrow. 

    Powerless to prevent the events or change their current situation. Wrung out—emotionally, spiritually and physically—by the troubling “what ifs”. These disciples were in what Richard Rohr calls “liminal space”—a particular spiritual position where human beings hate to be, but where the biblical God is always leading them. The Latin root limen literally means “threshold,” referring to that needed transition when we are moving from one place or one state of being to another. Liminal space usually induces some sort of inner crisis: you have left the tried and true (or it has left you), and you have not yet been able to replace it with anything else.

    Biblically this is:
    Abraham called to a land he did not yet know.
    It is Joseph in the pit or later prison.
    It is Jonah in the belly of the whale.
    It is David the shepherd anointed to be king.
    It is pregnant Mary.
    It is blinded Paul.
    And it is two disciples on the Emmaus Road.

    This journey is a time for overwhelming emotions and dangerous questions. Thank God we have each other!

    Like the disciples, when two like-minded friends chose to walk together and talk things out; comfort-that inner strengthening-occurs. They didn’t stride in silence or talk about the weather or anything else but that.  While the experience was still raw and fresh and powerful, unresolved and unhandled they chose to talk with each other about ‘all these things that had happened‘. This open-hearted conversation created a place for Jesus to join in. That is the soul of Christian community that can happen in a home, a coffee café, a corner of campus or the bleachers of a stadium.  It’s an unfixed place where two or more are gathered in His name with open hearts and authentic discussion seeking to discover Jesus and His transforming power. Here power is released for today and hope is given for tomorrow and comfort is received for the past through the Holy Spirit.

    Traversing the road between the now and the not-yet it is vital to have a spiritual companion with whom we can freely talk about ‘all these things that have happened’. Whether comforted or challenged, confessing doubt or debating action steps, always we gain a spiritual perspective that causes our hearts to burn within us as we realize Jesus has joined in the midst of these conversations, bring his wisdom and love as we walk the road together.

    After the alarming news of my son’s friend who died of an overdose, we gathered together as a family. We talked and assured one another. We prayed and our son joined with his friends and talked and they grieved together and they remembered their friend. And friends went together to the memorial and they talked and they comforted one another and this grieving family and they agreed in the promises of God and believed what was written, “He has risen.” And had hope.

     So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.
    HEBREWS 10:24-25

    May the Lord Jesus Christ bring you grace and peace in the midst of your Emmaus road.

  • 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.