Running Life’s Race With A Limp – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

February 19, 2026

All That Matters

The exercise of talking with God (praying), was invented by the Lord himself. . . to make way for communion and (as importantly) for transformation.

God talks. He comes with worthy things to say. All his communications are like that.

God also listens, wishing that his children grow to know him as companioning friend and not simply as “rescuing deity.” He speaks. He listens, and surprisingly to some, he seems quite content at just sitting with his image bearers in unstrained silence. This is itself a form of prayer. The practice carries a label. The discipline of silence.

But whether it is God speaking or the person speaking or simply an intentional time of God and his beloved sitting voiceless in one another’s company, he ever has this matter in mind. Transformation born of closeness.

The creator is ever in the business of saving his people and of growing his people to become much like himself. This is the only way his children are able to come to know him as he intends. In rightly practicing the discipline of silence within the discipline of prayer, the devotee to Jesus is sure to undergo metamorphosis. Change of character is underway as the disciple discovers that the really great thing going on is not a cosmic movement rattling the universe. Rather, something is happening at the interior level of the apprentice as they engage the practice. Such practicings of silence are, paradoxically, bringing forward inward transformation.

“Everyone thinks of changing the world”, Foster writes, “but where, oh where, are those who think of changing themselves? People may genuinely want to be good, but seldom are they prepared to do what it takes to produce the inward life of goodness that can form the soul.”*

For the believing Christian whose heart cannot stop yearning for more of Christ (where God’s presence may be getting routinely manifest in the ordinariness of daily living) nothing short of inside-out change will do.

February 12, 2026February 11, 2026

Talking With Whom?

In the mid-1970s a gifted couple were putting together a series of Bible studies to help equip church leaders across Africa. Fred and Grace Holland* found themselves mulling over the program’s course on Prayer. “What name can work that best identifies the heart of this practice?”, the couple wondered.

The textbook, Talking with God – a modest-sized publication bearing an attractive green-tint cover design – still enjoys wide usage across the continent.

If prevailing prayer reflects the life rhythms of a maturing Christian, anyone who engages the discipline finds themselves in admirable company. From Abraham to Daniel and from Hannah, the mother of Samuel, to Hannah the widow in the temple where little Jesus was dedicated.

This practice (talking with God) has, through history, helped form his people into a different kind of humanity. Christ’s apprentices have grown to exhibit his core nature.

“Talking with” God implies something beyond a mere one-way conversation. In listening attentively to God’s voice – spoken through the revealed word (holy scripture) and through impressions and promptings brought forward from his own indwelling presence – the believer grows receptive to Christ’s particular “way of being”. Like a caterpillar-turned-butterfly, change is underway from the inside out.

As one’s own heart then finds voice (silently or verbally) – offering up thanksgivings, petitions, groanings – or bursts of joyful praise. A longed-for resemblance to God’s son takes form. Apprentices of Jesus, habituating themselves in their talking-with-God discipline, take on over time, just a little bit more of the likeness of their Lord. His graces: Goodness. Patience. Meekness. Lovingkindness. . .

As the writer of Celebration of Discipline put it, “The primary purpose of prayer is to bring us into such a life of communion with the Father that, by the power of the Spirit, we are increasingly conformed to the image of the Son.”*

July 10, 2025July 9, 2025

Full Circle Friends

The world of social media, with its myriad features ranging from terrific to terrifying, has brought forward in our day some wondrous random surprises.

The Rockies and the Great Northwest started stealing my soul early on, even ahead of the providential discovery of a Billings, Montana lass whose marital companionship now spans many decades.

Fast forward.

A while back Ann and I were anticipating a special road trip. A long one. Departing Tulsa, we would head northwestwardly. Our travels should in time bring us full circle counter-clockwise back to the Sooner State, catching along the way long overdue snatches of time with family and friends. Enter Facebook.

A heart-skip moment overtook me when the photo of a young East African gent popped up.

“Hey babe, look who’s in Cheyenne, Wyoming!”, I called out.

A quick ‘messaging’ dialogue ensued. Ann and I could hardly wait to enter the Cowboy State and connect afresh with our friend, Seth, and to meet his wife and (now adult) children.

The dinner visit and overnight stay with the “O” family was priceless.

Motoring onwards – up and across Montana and through points further West – we snatched treasured visits (far too briefly) among international student alums of Tulsa University. Treasured friendships had been forged through those campus ministry years.

My social media fiddling had uncovered another revelation. I reached out to Naphtali. Long years had passed since our last meetup.

Ann had, in the early 80s, taught Naphtali accordion, had passed along to him her mother’s squeeze box for his street evangelism work in Nyeri town.

“Hey Naphtali, if you are home there in Seattle when we come through, could we catch an evening together?” Naphtali’s response was immediate, “Oh my. . Of course, Mzee!”

A couple weeks passed and we were in his city. Anticipating our call, our friend and posed a question:

“So now, Mzee, what would you and Sister Ann prefer – dinner out in the American style or some Kenyan food prepared in my kitchen?”

A no brainer, I smiled.

Our Kenyan hosts – transplants to Washington and Wyoming now – lived well the grace of welcoming*. Generosity at home in their bones.

*“Share with the Lord’s people. . practice hospitality”. Romans 12:13

February 27, 2025February 26, 2025

Common Stirrings

Once, in my early days of shadowing Jim Tracy on campus, he invited me to join him for a Sunday visit to a church on Sheridan Avenue.

Asbury Methodist’s annual event, designed to spotlight Missions awareness for the congregation should be in full swing. And the church’s outreach director, Mary Ann Smith, whom I had never met was (I would learn) more than up to the task.

Once the last ‘amen’ of worship service sounded and the twin exit doors opened wide, scores of the faithful – families, couples, singles – poured onto the repurposed parking lot.

Worshippers were soon strolling in and out of roomy little tents assembled for the occasion. They moved along, stopping now and then, taking in the several missionary displays set up and manned by a ministry rep or two. The booths featured intriguing photos and artifacts brought from other lands. Intriguing.

At Mary Ann and her team’s invitation, a collection of meal vendors had rolled in their food trucks and set up serving tables. The festive environment saw interested believers exploring “the world beyond” while munching fast food cuisine. The setting lent itself to easy exploration of global needs, extending opportunities for connecting in outreach.

Months passed and one day I sensed a nudge to reach out to Asbury Church. I hoped to see if this missions-minded community would take an interest in “the world at our doorstep”, i.e. international students of the University of Tulsa.

I met with Mary Ann Smith.

Mary Ann listened with interest as I shared our dream of better serving college students coming here to the U.S. heartland from across the world. She paused a moment before offering her thoughtful, poignant response.

“You know, Jerry, it’s interesting your wanting to visit with us about this just now.”

I was all ears.

“For the past little while I have been mulling the question, ‘What role could our church play if an opportunity opened for us to serve the students of T.U.?”

March 2, 2023

Contagion

“Where there are prophecies, they will fail”, the writer pointedly asserts. In the same abrupt language, he follows that even faith fails. Then finally (to the readers’ glad relief no doubt) comes the apostle’s astonishing assertion, “Love never fails.”

Wow. Love never fails.

Such a breathtaking truth will mean a lot of things. Here is just one of the joyous discoveries about God’s unfailing kind of love. Love begets love.

In other words, once we welcome into ourselves God’s pure love in Jesus – repeatedly receiving it over and over – we soon find ourselves reveling in it. We never want to be without it or him. What’s more, a new dynamic has shown up on the scene.

We find it impossible to hold the agape of God to ourselves. By its nature, God’s love – like an overly-filled bucket of water – sloshes out on the surroundings. The Psalmist would not keep such news under wraps, “He restores my soul – my cup overflows”.

Love fueling love. By faith God’s much-thirsty kids simply receive. They take into themselves his generous and forgiving acceptance of them, his free-flowing affection toward them. So, Drinking. Drinking, they receive. They want never to stop receiving. Such a mindset exactly reflects the highest hope their Father above entertains. Heaven dances!

Bookshelves overflow today, and likely groan under the weight of account after biographical account of history’s multiplying disciples. In the truest sense these apprentices are pure lovers. They are being fed and fueled on the Father’s love. Such apprentices have tasted and have drunk of the Spirit’s living waters. Narrative upon narrative recounts the multiplication factor. Spanning generations and language groups – traversing mountains and deserts and plains. “Love never fails”.

It is often noted (sorrowfully and accurately) that hurt people hurt people.

By contrast, the saving love Jesus introduces into our strife-plagued world carries within it seeds of a kind of holy contagion. Like an unbridled virus on the move. From the holy contagion all those flourishing branches – linked everyone to the single common Vine – yield up succulent fruit, fruit of the Spirit. The kingdom expands. From it there springs a cycle,

Loved people love people.

February 23, 2023February 23, 2023

Receiving

The wise apprentice acquaints himself with tools of the trade.

The disciple of Jesus is a person who desires and pursues gifts – tools God has given for aiding us in whatever tasks he may assign.

Yet, Christ urges us to something even better than his wonderfully stocked toolbox. He puts before us a thing that secures for us a way of living that is best of all. The way of love.

In his letter to the Corinthians, the tentmaker/teacher – guided by the Holy Spirit – makes clear the thing we would go after above all, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”*

When false pride hits the wall and collapses under its own weight.

When trying and trying ends in discouragement, even despair.

Surrendering to our Lord’s best-of-all way opens before us the different kind of living he has promised. The flourishing kind, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly”.*

If you are like me, this flourishing kind of life itself can on some days (let’s be honest) feel elusive. It is in these times that faith in Jesus recenters us to the one thing, the best-of-all thing. God’s love in Christ.

So, now that we know that love is the answer do we trade one kind of trying for another kind of trying (“I must now, out of the grit of my will, generate love”). How despairing is that! No, we get to be done with the trying. That is forever behind us. Effort yes. Purposeful motion. But not of the grinding, disheartening kind. God’s grace to the rescue!

Love, authentic love, issues out of God’s grace.

If you are a dog lover, think of the most affectionate and loyal canine you can imagine. Those special endearing qualities are simply expressions of his nature.

A common animal may not serve as the best metaphor, as we seek to illustrate a feature of the creator and sustainer of the cosmos. That said, love is God’s nature. He is himself the source, the fountain of love. Scripture condenses it down in straightforward language so that we don’t miss its impact, “God is love”*

You and I can never manufacture such a precious life-giving element. Yet, all the Christian life is to be marked by faith at work through love. The one thing that we can do, the thing we are ever called upon to do, is to receive love. And continue receiving, and receiving, love. Christ’s love alone generates love, and his love alone fuels power to do and become all that he intends for us, “Apart from me you can do nothing”.*

Receiving and living out of his love is doable. It is a case of meeting with him in simple practices. It is a faith journey in apprenticing.

*1 Corinthians 13:13; John 10:10; 1 John 4:8; John 15:5

February 16, 2023February 17, 2023

Lifeline

Hungering?

Not hungering for knowledge of the brainy kind. Not hungering after an experience. Not even hungering after spiritual growth, whatever we might assume that is.

One can stoke an appetite of yearning for the finest of things. But if the very finest of things is missing or drops to even second place on our craving list, we come up short. Like the man who climbs his ladder of success only to discover the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall.

The relentless hungering after a lesser thing, i.e. anything other than our Lord’s thing, carries the person to one of at least two places.

(A) The place of pride (I am one of those few select souls following hard after the ‘right path’. . . so take note!). Comparing his actions and behaviors to others, he views his spiritual maturity as deeper, more advanced. To this person good performing is everything.

(B) The place of despondence (Why did I ever buy into the notion that satisfaction and contentment were in reach, since all my efforts following this Christian trail have failed at both).

Any time we set out on our own to achieve a thing that can only be obtained by God and his means, we come up short. Disappointed. Frustrated. Disillusioned. Not fun places to be.

Let us picture this. A young lady grows up in a religious tradition where she routinely hears something like, “You must please God every day or you might not make it to heaven”. Or, “Here is a list of things in the Bible you had better be working on if you want to be a real worth-your-salt Christian.” Along the way the girl reads that Jesus calls disciples to follow him.

“I do want to be acceptable to God when I die”, she muses. “I want to be a good Christian. I will do my best to obey God and follow Jesus.”

In time this sincere soul simply grows weary in the trying. Trying to measure up. Day after day, trying and trying. Eventually throwing in the towel.

In the one kept afloat by human pride the bubble bursts. For the other, exhausted and spent in the tryings, all-out collapse awaits.

But then at the last moment, good news!

A lifeline floats our way straight off a New Testament page. Our weary soul rallies at the alluring words from the pen of a seasoned tentmaker,

But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.*

February 9, 2023February 4, 2023

Wanting

Apprenticing to Jesus bears fruit of the finest variety – kingdom fruit. God’s kingdom is that place where his will is done, “Thy kingdom come”.

Once a clear “Yes, I’m in I will be a Jesus-apprentice” is resolved, a new kind of season gets underway. And, hopefully, goes forward into a lifetime.

This is the season of habits, but habits leading to something far richer than the mere exercise of repeated practices. The season of habits, employed under the guidance and power of the Spirit offers promise of immense gratification.

This is the joy of inside-out transformation. Think of it. You and I humbly growing/changing through clearly laid out movements, into a vivid likeness of the one who invites, “Learn of me”.

We need to ask ourselves a question. Is the average, everyday Jesus-follower called to this radical kind of thing? Incorporating specific practices into routine life that would lead the believer to full-on Christlikeness? What about you?

Over and over the New Testament makes clear that every Christian is granted salvation with an assumption that life-long growth and change lie ahead,

“. . speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ”*

Men and women through history affirm the high aspiration, A spiritually mature Christian is “one whose whole character—dispositions, words, and actions—emulates the character of Jesus Christ himself.”**

Want.

Training for a life as a bull rider when you are, at your core, wired to work with spread sheets in the accounting field is a path that might well lead to despair (if not an injured spine).

Being a Jesus’ apprentice happens only in the life of the person who wants it. A genuine inner desire will mark the man or woman, youth or senior, who chooses discipleship to Jesus as their core life aim. Without a hungering for life in the company of Jesus, any ‘choice’ of apprenticeship can take the person to one of two places. Neither, a really fun place to be.

February 2, 2023February 4, 2023

Forward Motion

The young man from Schulter glanced to his right, then left. The sun had just set and in the half-light of dusk, he knew he dare not wait. He must leap aboard the slow-moving freight train at this exact moment or not at all.

Over the coming days in varied rail yards along his westward route, a similar scene replayed. At last, his final “hijacked” train ride landed him in Oakland. Clyde was poor, having fled his native Oklahoma where an awful drought – the notorious Dust Bowl – was underway. He had to find work. The Golden State (so he was told) offered the best promise.

Weeks passed.

In a matter of days, blisters from handling construction shovels had risen on his palms. He knew that ditch digging held little promise of a future for him and his bride-to-be. But the job put dollars into Clyde’s pocket, for now, some of his first since landing in Oakland.

He worked hard and soon the ambitious Okie answered a newspaper ad, “Plumber’s Helper”.

After a short stint on the job, Clyde advanced from ‘helper’ to ‘apprentice.’

“Plumber’s Apprentice. How about that.”

Growing up in the home of Clyde Baxter Lout, I caught wind of several names. These were his fellow journeyman plumbers. Kloon. Leggett. Mason, among others.

For my dad, choosing the route of apprenticeship bore fruit.

Apprenticing to Jesus Christ bears fruit as well. Enduring and gratifying fruit. Kingdom fruit.

The apprentice-to-Jesus has shifted gears in his life’s trajectory. He sets out to grow into the kind of person he believes he’s marked by heaven to become. He embraces something called spiritual formation. Not everyone calls it this. Some speak of sanctification – an ongoing work of grace. It is characterized by living forward into a different kind of life, life on God’s terms.

At such a juncture some seekers after ‘more’, offer up a clear “Yes, I’m in. I will be a disciple of Jesus.” For others, there is a warming process, like a courtship. Regardless, a new kind of season has gotten underway. For many who have caught the astonishingly good taste of God’s pardoning love and have drunk deeply of it through faith, they need no further persuading. They are in for a lifetime! As a widely-sung campfire melody puts it, “No turning back, no turning back.”

January 25, 2023

Bridging the Divide

Our cinema van slowed, rolling forward to the shoreline.

Africa’s vast body of water, Lake Victoria, lay directly ahead. If we should reach our destination, Rusinga Island, we must await the ferry here at Mbita Village.

We watched the ferry approach. Soon the Toyota, bearing us two missionaries, a diesel generator, a movie projector and gospel films departed the mainland. We and our cargo floated toward the water-encircled land before us.

Throughout it all the ferry was key. We had no other way to make it there. This was it, the ferry. Just this.

A religious group in the city where I now live set a sign in front of their meeting place. The organization promotes an idea that there are many equally valid “life paths”.

The sign reads, What is the true bible for you?

To the disciple of Jesus, such a question seems odd.

To his delight, the disciple has found that the book of the ages – the Holy Bible – holds in its pages the answers to life’s biggest questions. Foundational truths addressing the deepest concerns of every culture and people through every generation are preserved in the ancient Judeo-Christian texts.

Amazingly, the Bible leads anyone who responds to its invitation to the answer of all life’s primary needs. That answer does not lie in a philosophy or a principle or a creed. Rather, in a person. Jesus.

The earnest Christ-follower stands assured that each broken individual, every fractured, upside-down society can be healed, can be put right. Truths found in scripture supply hope for every soul who lives. What is needed is opening and reading and honestly considering the Book’s words. And responding to God, to his salvation offer of ongoing abundant living with him. In surrender to Jesus.

What Bible is for me?

The disciple has looked carefully at Jesus’ life in the scriptures and says, “I like what I see in the nature of this person, Jesus. I want that. I want it more than anything I have ever wanted, more than anything I could ever want.”

Terrific! It is at this place then, we must meet our challenge. Deep waters lie before us, our complete inability on our own of getting to the place we need to go. It is like gazing across Victoria’s waters to Rusinga Island but with no ferry to get us there.

Good news.

The disciple is not left stranded, the apprentice is given means. A land of the living beckons.