A Trail Before Us, a Map to Guide Us
LETTER BY GRACE POUCH
As I write this, my son is sitting on the couch beside me doing his geography homework. His assignment is to draw a map of his school with the common elements that make maps useful. For example, Orientation indicates which way is North so you don’t hold the map upside down, Author identifies a reliable source so you can trust it to get you where you want to go, and Key unlocks the meaning of symbols and colors that stand for certain features.
A trustworthy map can be an invitation into new terrain and a lifeline for survival. Guidance is good for us. And that’s as true on the spiritual journey as it is on the Appalachian Trail.
God and his kingdom are invisible, but no less real and open for exploration. While each of us is invited to be a seeker in our own right, we proceed with more clarity about what to expect and where to pay attention, thanks to disciples who have blazed a trail before us. Taking up the tools of story, image, simile, or song, these cartographers of the holy describe what they’ve come to know by heart, inviting us further up and further in to communion with Father, Son, and Spirit.
People can illuminate and describe the way, but it is Christ who is the way. He was the Word before language, the Image before imagery. And he can reveal himself unaided by any human markings.
While the great “I am” cannot be contained and will never be fully mapped, he offers himself to be known and loved and described. And he gives us the power and ability to be way-mappers in his name, passing on, with artful care, “that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched” (1 John 1:1).
I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that great spiritual guides have saved my life. They have pointed me to life-giving streams when I was dying of thirst, and plotted the coordinates of vistas that expanded my perspective. And shining through every trustworthy map, whether Scripture or story or poem or painting, there is the Living Christ, my ever-present guide and companion on the way.
Grace Pouch
Content Manager
P.S. Next week we’ll unveil our 2026 – 2027 Book Club journey, themed around “ancient paths.”
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LET’S DIVE IN...
CURATED BY GRACE POUCH
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1.
Richard Foster explains that spiritual reality is hidden from us “until we want to see it … want to see it with all our hearts … long for it like the deer longing for flowing streams (Ps. 42:1). Read “The Invisible Nature of the Spiritual” from a vintage Renovaré newsletter.
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2.
From the Life With God podcast vault, Lacy Borgo talks with Nathan Foster about a true explorer of the depths of God, Thomas Kelly, whose book A Testament of Devotion offers what Lacy calls a “grand vision of what is most real in the world.”
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3.
In “A Thinking Faith,” Dallas Willard writes that “crooked thinking — intentional or not — always favors evil. By contrast, to take the ‘information’ of Scripture into a mind thinking straight, under the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, is to place our feet solidly on the high road of spiritual formation under God.”
– Grace
WORTH QUOTING
“A discovery of an Eternal Life and Love breaking in, nay, always there, but we were too preoccupied to notice it, makes life glorious and new.”
– Thomas Kelly (source)
Invitations
August 26 - ONLINE
This Orientation Workshop is the entry-point to learn about and participate in Renovaré Listening Groups. All attendees will receive the Listening Group Booklet and access to a directory to help facilitate connections.
Regional Event
September 11-12, 2026 | Golden, Colorado
Join Jonathan R. Bailey and Mimi Dixon for a weekend of teaching, worship, reflection, and conversation around Jon’s new book, Dwelling in Christ. Jon will overview the “Threefold Way” — an ancient framework for cultivating a life of communion with God and spiritual transformation. No prior knowledge of the book is needed.
TO CONTEMPLATE
St. Marks Altar, Venice
Miner Kilbourne Kellogg Before 1889
(source)
Think of a time when you felt especially tuned into God’s presence. Maybe during worship, or as you were serving someone’s needs, or out in nature. Or maybe God’s nearness dawned on you while you were creating something beautiful. If you wanted to return to that moment of communion with the Lord, how would you attempt to get there? Would you go to a certain place or cultivate a certain state of mind? Reflect on that moment and pay attention to what set it apart for you. Let these memories be little markers that point out what might help you live with greater alertness to the Lord with you always and everywhere.
TO PONDER
A prayer by George MacDonald
(from Diary of an Old Soul)
Thou art here — in heaven, I know, but not from here—
Although thy separate self do not appear;
If I could part the light from out the day,
There I should have thee! But thou art too near:
How find thee walking, when thou art the way?
Oh, present Christ! make my eyes keen as stings,
To see thee at their heart, the glory even of things.