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December 18, 2025December 17, 2025

Learning Curve Cont’d

Those who knew him (directly or indirectly) would attest that Professor Willard modeled well what it can mean to progress over time into a kind of person who would naturally and routinely exhibit much of the nature of the Lord Jesus. Willard, ever a trainee himself and no stranger to challenges of his own along the way, subscribed, with a robust and warm-hearted tenacity, to a foundational conviction. A truth grounded in Scripture and advanced among apprentices to Jesus across the centuries:

“A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in their life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do.”

This kind of conviction calls for embarking on a rigorous, adventurous (and as it commonly turns out, utterly satisfying) journey into training.

Among the more weighty (and worthy) thoughts for any image-bearer to ponder may be the following – also penned by the esteemed USC professor.

“The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become. That’s what you will take into eternity.”*

December 11, 2025December 16, 2025

Learning Curve

Christ-followers hold that our amazing “sweet-society God” is the only Divine Being in all the cosmos. He’s the God who through the centuries – indeed, through eternity – has joyfully collaborated within his own triune being. This is a thing that challenges, if not defies, our imagination. Self-existent and self-sustaining, nothing of good is absent. Nothing lacks.

Perfect completeness, it can be attested, finds its definition in God. The triune Father and Son and Spirit relish one another’s presence. Each takes extravagant delight in the others. God requires nothing beyond himself to be. Within himself is utter perfection and completeness.

Yet, astonishing as it may be, God has chosen to insist on bringing along others (we, his own image-bearers who’ve been brought into existence by the Lord himself) into this mysterious, glorious mix. He ever works to mingle and play and collaborate with us in bringing about our inner and outer transformation for the good. (and, what higher good for a family of humans could there be than to come to embody and reflect the pure likeness of the Father’s distinctively beloved Son?)

Partnering with God, of course, involves more than merely being together in the same room. The road to spiritual transformation is one of training. What is one of the father’s primary aims? His goal is our joyous, flourishing growth in becoming the best version of ourselves – just as we were created to be. Easily recognizable as a people continuously brimming to overflowing with the qualities and nature and the very life of our Lord. Jesus – the undiluted, non-pretentious embodiment of love. Such a lofty aim may at times feel impossibly out of reach. Until one gladly recalls they are on a With-God pilgrimage.

December 4, 2025December 3, 2025

A-Team

Camaraderie – Collaborating – Companioning.

The three words share common ground with yet another ‘C’ word – a special kind of word capturing what the others might reflect. Community. And, the very creator offering a believer his companioning presence – what a treasure!

“Faith was never meant to be done alone”.

Whoever coined the line understood, and must have surely prized, its profound truth. It reflects the human order when at its best.

The wonder of collaborating with God as a principal partner in life transformation means discovering that he brims with community within himself.

God’s three-in-one Community – boundless in love, delight and power – defies our capacities to imagine or describe. The nature of the divine trinity – God the Father, the Son and the Spirit – intrigues and stupefies the finite mind.

The old Puritans of centuries past coined a pithy term that calls up the warmth of their image of God. A glorious personal being of extravagant love, joy, goodness and peace. God (the Puritans testify) is, in himself, “a sweet Society”.

May we dare to imagine our sweet-society God, radically partnering with his children in the forever enterprise of shaping us, day by day, into the likeness and nature of Jesus. He, who is all goodness, through and through.

November 27, 2025November 26, 2025

Partnering Up

When a rightly-fitted yoke is slipped about the burden bearers’ neck, there’s no cause for angst if the team partner formed and sustains the cosmos.

God speaks of his beloved apprentices as those who help lift the load of their fellow travelers*. Yet, even when the added “baggage” may seem far more than one can handle, the burden is lessened to near feather-weight once a pair of useful elements are brought into play.

Partnering and Practicing.

When Jesus stated in his near matter-of-fact way, “Without me you can do nothing”, he actually meant it.

The moment a disciple of Christ comes to terms with their sheer inability to push forward beneath the strain of a load, this is the kind of moment the Lord relishes. Why? Because he knows it is at just those times when we’ve run out of gas or we’ve run dry or we’re about to run for the hills, that we are most ready for his partnering to kick in. God never has meant for us to labor and toil for him from our feeble strength nor out of a straining fortitude.

Jesus calls us friends.

What are friends about? A friend shows up. A friend partners with us amidst our most desperate, most crushing seasons. Their quiet presence alone is often enough.

A friend is also one who knows how to laugh with us, long and hard. Tears flow. They spring this time not from sorrowings – but from sheer, unimpeded, pull-out-the-stops delight over some surprise happening or experience. Possibly through a side-splitting joke, or from one of those shared memories that suddenly blindsides the funny bone.

On the recent birthday-Monday, along an Okmulgee street I was in the midst of a small company of friends sharing a sweet moment of laughter. Not of the knee-slapping kind but one of the kind that leaves the heart strangely warmed. Our little band had just taken part in a short prayer-walk in the “bubbling brook” city of my youth, when somebody caught word it was my birthday. A melodic voice struck a chord. The springy melody was underway, “Happy birthday to you. . . !”

Friends praying – and singing – and laughing. Flowing from the Spirit of the dearest Friend ever.

November 20, 2025November 20, 2025

Fun Petitioning

Milestones. When they come around, a great many are met with celebrations. My birthday some weeks back was no exception. An unexpected bonus got slipped in. The entry here, published in the TIMES paper where I’m privileged to offer up weekly articles, gives rise to much gratitude.

* * *

This coming Monday, September 29, 2025, is to mark for me another completed circuit around the sun! This time, a noteworthy milestone – since my birth year is 1945. And, it happens that, to my great pleasure, I will be in Okmulgee, the city of my childhood. How cool will it be – strolling her streets on my eightieth, accompanying an assembly of fellow Jesus-followers. Praying with them over this very special community. (If you’re so inclined, come join the fun!)

But wait. Prayer? Fun?

Just to be clear, interceding (verbally appealing to the Lord in the heartfelt care of others) is not to be summed up solely by the word fun. However. If praying, when examined across the pages of the Bible and through the centuries of its practice demonstrates anything, it is this.

Christ means for joy to mark the lives of his apprentices.

“Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, ‘I praise you, Father. . .'”; “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.*

When petitioning God about things on our hearts we may indeed groan at times. Over the state of our world, over our homelife, over the lives of others in their crushing needs. This is part of authentic praying and is often modeled for us in Scripture. The Spirit of our Lord calls us to it. Bob Pearce, founder of World Vision Intl., captures the sentiment as well as anyone, “Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God”.

Still, where praying can, and often does, include the groan of lament (passionate expression of grief or sorrow), such heaviness of expression does not fully reflect the disposition of prayer. Not at all.

Scripture is generously peppered with the sounds of God’s children, his apprenticing followers, freely voicing their joyous, celebratory (fun-filled) declarations to him. We are urged to jump into the fray. “Rejoice in the Lord always”, Paul exhorts, then adds, as if to ensure that we catch the Father’s happy longing, “. . again I will say, ‘rejoice!”**

A helpful posture of heart is called for at our meetings-up with Christ. Whether in praying or in serving, whether through lament or celebration, the believer is not called upon to “make something happen”.

Teeth-gritting, fist-clinching attempts at praying are foreign to the way of journeying with the Lord Jesus – Inventor of the easy yoke.

November 13, 2025

Mentored

“Follow me, as I follow”. It is interesting isn’t it, that the best of leaders tend to be the best of followers?

Paul’s invitation language makes something clear. His offer to model the faith for the “Christ-disciple wannabe” is a statement flowing from humility, not arrogance. After all, this man Paul is the Jesus-hating ‘Saul of Tarsus’ of yesteryear. His resume reads in part, “Paul – the worst of sinners”.*

The Difference Jesus Makes.

Saul of Tarsus had met the Master of masters. His life-altering collision with God in Christ on the Damascus Road initiated a hundred-eighty-degree turn. The former homicidal Pharisee plunged into the deep end of Christ-centered discipleship. With Paul, as with others (Matthew, Peter, James. . .) he took up an apprenticing posture under the direct tutelage of his savior, the Lord Jesus. So that a while later, Paul’s transformation still ongoing, he wrote younger believers in the faith, offering his invitation: “Follow me as I follow Christ”**. Walking purposefully – one day after the next after the next – in the company of his welcoming mentor, the trainee had grown suited to train others. Paul the apprentice (never ceasing to be follower) led.

Continuing to follow after – striving himself toward Christlikeness (“that I may know him”***) – the humble disciple-maker could speak from his established identity in the Lord.

His life one of mentoring, instructing, of modeling Christ.

Electrician apprentices (when intentional in their cause) get transformed into electricians. French language understudies who, over the long haul, devote themselves to the cause, advance in time to become easy conversationalists. . .even in Paris!

Whether a person is Italian tenor Adrea Bocelli, Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, or Okmulgee’s dustbowl-escapee-turned-Journeyman Plumber Clyde Lout. Each of them is marked by a feature that keeps propelling them forward.

Intention.

November 6, 2025November 5, 2025

For Good Measure

Apprenticing through Practice.

“Measure twice, cut once.”

Carpenter-trainees know the phrase well. When setting out to cut a piece of lumber, the worker employs his time wisely, even when extra seconds of time are called for. By taking care to measure and mark the piece – not once but twice – the craftsman guards against mistakes (some can be costly!) and avoids senseless waste.

The “measure-twice” phrase loops in the head repeatedly during an apprentice’s early tutoring under the guidance of their craftsman-teacher. The mantra, being revisited again and again over time – in both mind and bodily action – transforms an important quality inside the carpenter-wannabe. They are never the same, and happy for the change.

The carpenter apprentice might at first regard the “measure-twice” action as a pointless waste of time. But not for long.

Any successful tradesman in any field has applied himself to (firstly) pay attention to instruction and (secondly) to practice – practice – practice.

We don’t have to look far within Scripture to spot a seasoned follower aligning himself to the way of Jesus Christ.

What does Paul coach the believer in, once they are challenged to reframe their thought life toward things of “excellence”? As a spiritual journeyman, so to speak, Paul invites the following:

“What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

October 30, 2025

Crossroad

Life-altering decisions call for action.

Once I choose to lay aside poor patterns of living in favor of speech and conduct that better reflect God’s life in Christ, I must engage my will. I take action. I come to terms that I am shifting from spectator mode. I’m in the game for real.

Thinking will play an important part in moving into a better kind of living. But mental pondering alone over a crossroad lying before a traveler fails to get them a centimeter onto the new direction.

The fork has appeared in the road ahead, and I know I must act on my decision. Taking “the road less travelled”, I engage a powerful thing known as the will. My will.

Willpower alone lacks the necessary energy to bring about spiritual transformation. Nevertheless, the long journey of change into Christlikeness will never occur apart from my will – and my ongoing actions of choice stemming from it as I pursue him. And my pursuit of him marks the terrain where my will and the Lord’s companioning presence merge. I have willed to begin letting him be in charge.

Jesus supplies his powerful presence, but even so, he avoids seizing the steering wheel of my personal volition – my will. He offers his presence and his power right along with his offer of partnering with me throughout our good and marvelous life-altering adventure together.

It is so with all his disciples – each one a work in progress – God’s beloved children. We engage. We yield. Shifting our posture, we set our feet in motion alongside his companioning presence. It is when this happens that the load becomes light.

When the economic crisis of 2008 descended on the United States, several industries were broadsided. Among those profoundly impacted by the financial earthquake was the oil industry. Several of our international friends who had been majoring in Petroleum Engineering at our city’s university were swept into an academic crisis. Career-altering decisions were made in a matter of days. At a major crossroad, their futures felt at stake

Almost overnight graduate students at the PhD and Masters levels found themselves redirecting their attention to very new fields of research. Fresh learning curves met them at every turn, sharp and steep!

While these scholars were endowed with very keen minds, to shift from their petroleum engineering specialty to another demanded of them not only a new focus but a new set of disciplines. The students could not make the daunting change by merely wishing for it or by thinking it into being. Learning of and then entering into a new set of practices had to be embraced. Whole careers rested on this proposition.

In a similar way, when a Christian proceeds past something called their profession of faith, and embraces their actual identity as disciple-of-Jesus, they have embarked upon a life-altering path. Profession of faith becomes Practice of the faith. Humbly and decidedly with both will and their yieldedness in place, they strike out on the new path. A decision has been made – one of many lying ahead of them.. They have chosen the with-God life.

October 23, 2025October 22, 2025

Pulsing Cries

Ruth Haley Barton, author and consultant who specializes in bringing clarity to otherwise murky waters for individuals and ministry teams alike, offers this,

“Your desire for more of God than you have right now, you’re longing for love, your need for deeper levels of spiritual transformation then you have experience so far, is the truest thing about you.”*

Isn’t it interesting how quickly we can point to features about ourselves and mistakenly assume they are the things that most accurately define who we are?

Ruth continues,

“You might think that your woundedness or your sinfulness is the truest thing about you or that your giftedness or your personality type or your job title or your identity as husband or wife mother or father somehow defines you. But in reality it is your desire for God and your capacity to reach for more of God than you have right now that is the deepest essence of who you are. . . From this place we cry out to God for deeper union with him and with others.”

The Apostle Paul, who penned a large portion of the New Testament, voiced his own longings, even after long years had piled up in his companioning journey with Christ.

“For my determined purpose is that I may know Him, that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly. . .”**

His words were not an expression of mediocrity. We may wish to pause a moment, draw in a slow breath, and re-read them.

This single-focused messenger (Paul) surely yearned that the same kind of longing he knew might characterize every Christ-follower getting introduced to the way of the Master,

“My little children. . . I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!***

Such pulsing cries breaking from the heart of those early messengers (and the many who followed after), call the believing world to run after the resurrected Lord. Marking those who do as a people given over to desire.

This gives me pause. Some of my desires can use some realigning. Others, if I am honest, likely call for drastic action. Some may well need killing. Getting soon replaced with desires that are worthy of the name.

October 16, 2025October 15, 2025

The Chase

“Practice makes perfect”, so goes the saying.

Aiming for Christlikeness, in the sense of fully mirroring Jesus’ faultless nature, is likely a reach too far. Still. Every believer can go, and is welcomed to go, a meaningful distance in narrowing that gap.

The late Brennan Manning stated with refreshing candor: “When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. . .”

A Franciscan priest, and author of *The Ragamuffin Gospel, Manning noted that God’s gift of grace brings to us: “Power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt. This and so much more is sheer gift”.

The priest further lays his heart bare in characteristic self-disclosure, “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”

In A.W. Tozer’s list of qualities he found reliably present in the nature of God, noted that one of them is God’s Immutability. God’s nature is reliable. He doesn’t change. God loves, and he loves without deviation. His love is immutable, always in “on” mode. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases” (Lamentations 3:22)

So, we ask the question. Do I wish to grow to be more like Jesus. . . that is, to love as he loved and called us to love? Or, short of this, could I bring myself to sincerely whisper, “I want to want to love in this way”?

Either position can be a perfect place to begin and to proceed forward from.