Impassioned: A Call to Spiritual Revolution

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Preface

I am on a journey. The ideas and thoughts that I share in this book are the result of the last five years of my life as I have journeyed with my family through transition, tragedy, loss, uncertainty, and pain.

When you write a book, there is a sense among the people around you that somehow you must be an expert about the subject you’ve written about. Truth be told, I’m not an expert on how to live an impassioned life. I can’t sum up all of the ideas of this book in one trite little statement, but I can offer you something else.

The only thing that has given me any of the wisdom, discernment, or truth that comes out of this book is, in fact, not a thing…but a person. I believe in the Spirit of God as it resides in the person who has decided to become an apprentice of Jesus. This is my disclaimer for what you are about to read. Anything good that comes from what you read, I cannot take credit for. Anything you struggle with from what you read, I cannot take credit for that either. In fact, I simply desire to offer these words as an encouragement to you that you can become an impassioned disciple of Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit that illuminates the mind and opens the heart.

This book is for Christ-followers. While you may, no doubt, find most of the chapters applicable to your life if you are not one, I am writing this to those who consider themselves to be disciples of Jesus. In recent days, I have become aware that what creates a disciple is not simply a matter of talk. Discipleship is not a sermon you listen to or a quick devotional read from a popular Christian author. A more appropriate word for what we are if we follow Jesus is the term apprentice. As apprentices, we require a process for spiritual growth. That process looks very different for each of us. But that is what makes apprenticeship work so nicely in the life of a Jesus follower. His lessons and principles can be carried out by the masses, but the relationship we form with the Master teacher during the process of applying those lessons and principles is something we can’t put words to.

Impassioned is a book about life, specifically yours. In the following pages I want to create in you a desire to follow Jesus closer. My main theme throughout is that you’ve been given your life not for yourself. You’ve been given your life in order to give it back to the One who made you. Only when you connect your life to your Creator will you experience fully what it means to be impassioned.

The book is divided into two parts. Part One is entitled Determining your Direction. In order to know where you are going in life, it is absolutely essential that you know where you currently are. It’s just like standing in front of one of those upright maps in your local shopping mall. In order to figure out how to get where you are going, you have to figure out where you are. That’s why most mall maps have a little arrow pointing to a place on a map with a sticker that says You are here. Consider the first part of this book my personal sticker on your life that tells you You are here.

The second part of the book is entitled Determining your Identity. I have laid out this part of the book in a simple principle-oriented fashion. These are not morals for you to live by. But I do want to offer encouragement to you in these different areas because I feel that these are the areas that most significantly have affected my own life. Perhaps God will guide you into your own heart a little closer as you read through these chapters. He will expose the lies you’ve believed about Him and about yourself and take you into greater understanding and truth.

Where appropriate I have referenced the Bible. Most of what you are reading comes from my interaction with Jesus through His Word, through our circumstances in life, and through the community of faith that my wife and I are a part of at the Journey Church in Franklin, TN.

At the end of every chapter I have offered some questions for reflection. Read through them and answer them as honestly as you can. I believe that as you explore what it means to live an impassioned life, God will use these questions, reflections, and ideas to assist in shaping you as you continue in your apprenticeship to Jesus.

Thank you for taking the time to read. My sincere desire is that these pages would be more than just words on a page, but that they would encourage and enlighten you to become passionate about the Kingdom of God as He invites you into the story He is telling.

Strength and Honor,

Art Kelly

INTRODUCTION

It is quiet. All you see around you is the smooth, still water. Trees mirrored on the bank of the river overlook the stillness of nature as you begin your trek downstream. From out of the bottom of your wooden canoe you pull out your paddle and break the stillness. Ripples scurry off in all directions as you leave your mark upon the smooth cold water. Propelled by your paddle and moved by your ambition your small ship cuts through the water and your presence makes itself known. Out into the wild you go, into the great unknown. Led by a dream you don’t know how to reach and motivated by a goal you cannot yet see, you move forward. And life begins.

Along the shore ahead you see a small campfire, and paddling against the current you move towards it. The light you see is brighter than the darkness that surrounds you, but it is still just a small flame, fragile, weak, and yet still alive. Your mind begins to think of the possibilities. This could be something new! But fear clouds your judgement.

Should you stop here, fuel this fire, and make camp for the night? Or should you just pour water on it and continue on?

The Life You Long For

Life is not fair. You are born. You live. Things happen. Then you die. For many people, life is simply something to get through. Every day men and women, boys and girls wake up, go about their business, entertain themselves, work or study, and then go on to end their days the same as everyone else. Most of life is not lived on a mountaintop. It is experienced in the dull, monotonous routine of daily activity and responsibility.

The world we live in has its own set of rules as well. The business world is as many would say, Dog eat dog. The strong survive, the fit get attention, the rich get richer, and the rest of us get weaker, fatter, and poorer…it seems. For many people, life is just a one-way road to our death. And death is a sobering reality for all of us.

And yet, with all that it leaves to be desired, this world is the birthplace of life. Whether you believe in evolution or intelligent design, we all have a basic understanding that life came from the dust. And it is in the dust that our story…the story of humanity begins.

Out of the dust rises clay fashioned by a supernatural hand …

Blown into the clay image is a spirit, soul, and will…given by the breath of God.

Out of the divine mystery of Trinity comes humanity.

And hope is born.

Hope for a humanity that creates like God

loves like God,

and thinks like God.

Hope for a humanity that rules and reigns with their Creator, not against Him.

Hope for a humanity that loves as freely and deeply as God does.

Hope for a humanity that walks spiritually connected to its Source and reproduces new life in others.

But hope is not the only thing that fills this world. Darkness also has found its way into this human world. The dreams of a God who created to love and live are seemingly snuffed out as a dark adversary squeezes the life out of His creation.

All hope seems lost.

Death lingers.

Darkness pervades.

And then…hope is reborn. A light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

Into this dark world we are drawn to a light that only shines from the face of God. It is this light that gives LIFE. And hope has a name.

Yeshua. Emmanuel. God is with us.

And God is still telling His story….

PART ONE: DETERMINING YOUR DIRECTION

Your beliefs determine your destiny, so know what you believe.

CHAPTER ONE

Live

You wake up to the sound of the alarm ringing in your ears. Slowly, groggily you get out of bed, wishing you had just a few more minutes of sleep. The sound of the world outside begins to creep into your world and a new day begins.

You flip on the television to see your favorite news celebrities bringing you the morning’s newest reasons to get up in the morning.

An attractive face beckons you to watch or buy something that your spirit knows you don’t need, but your flesh covets.

A quick turn of your head and you are off to the bathroom to brush your teeth, clean yourself up, and get ready for your day to begin. Perhaps like some, you hear the sound of children in your house. That little boy who has needs that must be met, that little girl who stirs in her crib…both vying for your attention before you are even able to think about you.

This is your morning. It is time to begin. Off to the races, out of the blocks, into the car…you are on your way. If only the rest of our lives could read like Dr. Seuss’ classic book Oh the Places You’ll Go. Maybe like so many of us who begin our days in similar fashion, you leave your heart at the door before you take off down the driveway and into the world you have created for yourself. All the while, you sense that something is missing.

Can you relate to this feeling? Are you happy to be going to work today? Is this the life you’ve always wanted? How did you get yourself where you are? What could this day possibly hold for me that will be different than all the days before?

And then it happens….life takes a dramatic shift. A child dies, a family member receives the news of a terminal illness, you move far away from home, you lose your job, a foreclosure looms on the horizon, you make a bad decision that costs you all you have. You realize that you are only one bad decision, one life event away from seeing your world fall apart. You know that life is fragile, you’ve heard it over and over….but it doesn’t mean a thing until it happens to you.

Every one of the tragic events I just listed have happened to me over the course of the last two years. What you are about to read is the story of my journey. The reality of life, death, disappointment, and despair are all very real, raw elements of this author’s life. The reason I’m sharing my story with you here is to offer you an alternative to the life you were told you were supposed to be living. Do you remember that life? The one where you were supposed to get a good education, drive a nice car, and live in a nice house? The dream that you would stay in a job for 30 years, retire in style and receive a hefty pension check? The life of luxury that everyone else seemed to be living but in reality has turned out to be a beautiful mess?

What do you do when your journey takes you through failure, loss, death, depression?

Where do you go? How strong is the anchor that holds you in place? Where do you find the strength to move forward in spite of the impending trouble that looms