Jerry’s Reflections – Page 7 – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

October 19, 2023October 19, 2023

Choctaw Landing

Rumors were buzzing of a tech revolution set to break across the planet. A history-shaping phenomenon spanning nations, sporting a lackluster brand – www.

While the World Wide Web was poised to take the universe by storm, sizable bands of missionaries scattered about remote regions of earth remained for the time being pretty much in the dark. No surprise. Through all of mission history new and curious cutting-edge advances – from transistor radios to laundry softener sheets (this one triggered puzzlement and wonder for Ann at our first furlough) – usually left the developing world sprinting to catch up.

Thus, a snail-mail missive bearing my signature made its leisurely way from Moshi Tanzania to the Colorado offices of International Students, Inc. In it I asked if there might be a place for me to offer some cross-cultural services during our temporary time in the U.S. (I smile now at the qualifying term ‘temporary’). Surprisingly, the response came swiftly.

“Mr. Lout, if you are able, please come by for a visit. . . (furthermore) We have a staff member serving on a university campus in Tulsa, OK. You should be hearing from James Tracy.”

Lord, is this you working?

D-Day for leaving Africa sped our way, a list of priorities getting checked off every few hours:

Ministry task handoffs
Miscellaneous paperwork
Eight-year-old Amy’s hard goodbyes to friends, and to Africa – the only home she knew

A border crossing northward to Kenya.
Also, Ann fashioning a full wedding garment. Our firstborn, Julie, would marry not long after our arrival stateside. She and her mother hoped the dress would fit nicely. It did.

Receiving sporadic updates on our parent’s health (Ann’s mother, my Father)

Graduation Day. An exciting time, watching Scott all capped and gowned make his way across the Rift Valley Academy stage. Mere hours before our plane’s lift-off from Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta.

The coming season would usher in a flurry of emotions, all tethered to precious events and people. The receiving of a new son-in-law. The passing of a parent. The reorienting to life in a familiar yet strange land.

For Ann and me, the job of tackling and navigating our larger future would be met in due course. We drew comfort in the assurance of God’s presence and care over us and of our loved ones. He had gone ahead before us in times past and would somehow show his faithfulness yet again.

Taking our assigned seats in the big plane we buckled up, catching the excited buzz of our fellow passengers – home-bound tourists for the most part. I took in a few long breaths. My taut shoulders relaxed. Choctaw, Oklahoma, here we come.

A line in the dictionary offers up a succinct definition: “Either end of an airport runway, critical points of takeoffs and landings”. The word being defined –Threshold.

October 12, 2023October 11, 2023

A Mirror Dimly

With our first two children now college age and our youngest sprinting toward adolescence, a number of pivotal shifts – threshold moments – lay ahead. Leaving Africa felt surreal. Life as we knew it was soon to radically change.

On some days we felt a faint sense of adventure for some veiled assignment the Lord may have in store. In large part though, truth be told, my bride and I felt like hapless passengers on a rudderless ship bobbing on fog-laden seas. Paul’s words to the faithful at Corinth had become quote-worthy, “We see in a mirror dimly”*.

My flight route out of Tanzania brought me via Europe to the U.S. and on to Oklahoma. On the long journey a string of uncertainties played at my imagination like a gathered company of aircraft hovering above a big airport, each waiting its turn to land. One set of musings circled around again and again.

How grave is my dad’s condition. . . will the radiation protocol rise to the occasion? What actually Is Mesothelioma?

By degrees, March of ’92 chipped away at my emotional reserves. My foremost objective was to accompany Dad to his treatment appointments several days each week.

But then my brief snatches of times with our lovely firstborn brought precious and welcome reprieves. A Tex-Mex luncheon together disclosed news of a romance story underway, and I would meet Julie’s special beau before my trip back home (Tanzania).

In a particularly sacred kind of moment, my aged father tenderly granted a request I gently presented him. In keeping with an ancient biblical practice, he invoked a father to son blessing, leaning forward from his hospital bed. I am forever grateful.

Through our few weeks together, Dad’s treatments appeared to indicate some modest gains in the cancer battle. When we hugged farewell, we each donned a hopeful smile at the prospect of seeing one another in a few months, when the plane bearing my family would again touch down in the United States.

Back in East Africa our weeks and months streamed by. Tying together loose ends, sharing at farewell functions, celebrating our son’s graduation. A myriad body of tasks met us that are common to households transitioning yet again to other locations.

As the days for leaving the beloved continent neared, a moment of past reflection surfaced. The ad that had caught my eye a short while before – I.S.I.

Was International Students, Inc. to factor in as we bridge the coming divide – our next threshold?

October 5, 2023October 4, 2023

Bridge Ahead

As with many words, the term threshold has a way of stirring memories – some positive, others less so. An all-time favorite of mine calls up a treasured photo image, captured on, yes, my wedding day. The moment awakens warm feelings, still.

“How about we get a shot of you carrying your new bride across the threshold!”, the photographer offered.

My bride, Ann, and I were IN.

With the pastor’s house adjoining the church parking lot, a momentary mock venue was set.

Calling now to mind a thousand snapshots of us captured through all the years since that December day 1967, none matches the delightful threshold image.

Over time a long string of dates and events have signaled a parade of threshold moments. Many scenes, photographed or not, could carry enchanting captions.

“Hello (smiling)” Jerry meets Ann, 1964

“Yes, I’ll marry you”. (1967)

“Ladies and gentlemen, time to board”. Africa-bound flight. JFK International

“It’s a girl!” (1972)

“It’s a boy!” (1974)

“A girl!” (1983). . . Nairobi Hospital all

Thresholds.

Transitions mark the lives of us all. Every person forging new – uncharted passageways across life’s landscape – no two points of entry just alike.

Our Africa years stretched into decades. A good two dozen laps around the sun had flown past since we’d pledged our wedding vows and the camera flashed our threshold moment.

The dawn of 1992 would soon lift her ever-stretching sunlight across a very new kind of landscape.

September 28, 2023

Subtle Signals

How can three simple letters buried on a page inside a modest publication signal a life-altering shift in a person’s journey – into a future set to unfold some nine thousand miles away? And, in ‘spaces’ unlike any lived in before?

(*correction, ISI is not three letters, only two. One of them just gets more press!)

When big shifts occur in a person’s life, we sometimes find ourselves transported into new and different zones. They could be occupational or geographical or whatever. We might respond to any of these shifts with feelings of excitement, trepidation, enthusiasm or awe. The shift in my case included a physical relocation. My feelings tended to signal puzzlement.

If we could reduce to a single word the big turning points in our lives the term threshold might fit well.

Threshold – a place of beginning, a doorway, or brink.

At the time of spotting the letters, I S I, on the page of the quarterly publication those years ago, I could never have imagined their import. After all, the offices of International Students Inc were sat nestled in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies. My home lay in the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro.

Beyond the range of my understanding, a hint at an approaching shift with life-altering turns was signaling from that one page of the Evangelical Missions Quarterly lying open atop a small table before me.

Setting the magazine aside, my thoughts pivoted.

Dad had fallen gravely ill in Oklahoma. I had a plane to catch.

September 21, 2023

Readers Heads-up. Thresholds!

To my wonderful Blog readers, a happy Heads-up on a fresh direction at this site!

Beginning next Thursday our focus shifts a little, from the ‘Inside-Out’ theme to what we’re labeling THRESHOLDS.

In my earlier book, Giants In The Rough, an adrenaline-charged moment sees me stepping into a rough-hewn canoe in the Africa Outback in hopes of traversing a deep and turbulent river. The chapter – suitably titled ‘Measured Risk’ – shines a spotlight on the term, Threshold. A term which can mean starting point – brink – outset, (on the) verge. . .

My pledge to you by God’s grace is to offer up more of what you have come to look forward to (I wait for a reader to employ the term ‘drool after’ 🙂

The Thresholds series will feature memoir-like narratives, offering the reader unique highlights of our post-Africa years. The modest-sized entries should prove stimulating and enriching, hopefully inspiring and encouraging, as well.

So. The nature of the blog pieces shift now, from being fairly “instructional and insight-based” to offering up a parade of nonfiction human-interest stories. Still, the stories themselves conspire to form one overarching story. Linked one behind the next – like a line of trunk-to-tail circus elephants – these narratives supply the reader with nuggets here and there of (yes) insights, as we all journey forward in the adventure called life.

May you, my reader-friend, whether new to the blog scene or a veteran, find yourself, more than anything else, being simply lifted – heart and soul.

Finally, I WELCOME, as always, the occasional (or frequent) entry my readers leave for me in the ‘comment’ box. Nothing rallies a writer’s inspirational juices more than learning their words have touched a life in some heartening – yes, uplifting – way.

ENJOY a grand weekend ahead,

Jerry Lout

September 14, 2023September 14, 2023

Fountain

“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.”

By the time Richard Foster penned these words in his important book, “Prayer – Finding the Heart’s True Home”, he had gleaned some insights through years of learning to walk with Christ.

Richard had come to recognize that Christian prayer, in its most basic form, is not an exercise to enter into as a religious performance.

Many good and sincere church-goers become burdened down over time under the load of dutiful praying. Conversing with God (the actual meaning of what it is to pray), if engaged as a religious duty becomes a load that crushes.

Yes, serious praying like intercession (deep-hearted appeals for God’s watch-care over other people’s concerns) can feature intense times of wrestling in the arena of spiritual conflict. Still, when the Jesus-follower prays – even with intensity – the praying carries a quality of hope and of trust. Sitting quiet before him – recalling good that he has brought to one’s life – voicing thanksgiving. Prayer entered into in such a heart posture allows the stirring of a fountain within. The love fountain.

The reason? Communing with God in Christ, regardless the form it takes, is marked by faith and hope, of confidence and assurance in Father-God’s loving care. Unlike a vending machine where what happens is all about transaction, the relationship between Jesus and his apprentice is centered in just that. . . Relationship.

Thanksgiving mingled in worship invariably leads to prayer rising heavenward in some fashion. In fact, where these two expressions are offered up in one’s life – thanksgiving and worship – prayer is happening.

Love works that way. It is not self-seeking but generous – even when the answer we may have hoped for does not get realized. Love leans in. Navigating life out of the love fountain ensures teeth-gritting finds no place to land.

September 7, 2023

Assertive Action

“I am sorry, but your son will not walk again.”

My mom, seated in the Tulsa hospital’s polio ward, listened as the doctor offered his prognosis. Her heart sank.

It might be argued the physician’s assessment in the moment was made prematurely. Regardless, news like this coming to the parent of a paralyzed nine-year-old lying in a Hillcrest bed down the hall could not be received without emotion.

Our family was blessed to have friends. Common, blue-collar-status households marked, for the most part, the culture of our modest faith community. Upon receiving the latest troubling news of my ongoing decline, the little band of churchgoers rallied their hearts. They reset their resolve. As an earlier body of believers of ancient times had been challenged to do, they continued in prayer.*

Having been carried by Dad into the hospital weeks earlier – my legs and feet unresponsive to my very best efforts at even wiggling a toe – I was often reminded I was never forgotten by our faithful praying family.

My condition worsened still. Discussions were convened of bringing in a piece of equipment bearing a foreboding kind of name – the Iron Lung. A backup measure for my increasingly compromised respiratory system.

The actions of the small prayer band seemed a little counterintuitive. They simply kept on with their appeals. Kind people paid a visit resting kind hands* on my frail form.

It remains for me a big mystery as to why I got counted among some of the fortunate ones over time to encounter the miraculous firsthand. Looking back I recall with some wonder the astonishing shift in my condition. My terribly weakened body responding to the Lord’s gracious, powerful hand. The little company of his blue-collar intercessors had kept their petitions going. If biblical praying is anything it is love acted upon audaciously.

Some four weeks after the iron lung deliberation the hospital’s exit doors opened. I was standing upright, walking with only the support of a couple crutches which would soon get discarded. Both my body and spirit responded happily to the crisp air outside.

A doubtful questioner once offered, “I believe that, instead of God answering prayer, the matter is merely coincidental. You pray. A coincidence occurs and you claim that some prayer was answered.”

The prayer practitioner offered a kind response, “Maybe you are right. Yet, what I have found is this. The more we pray – the more the coincidences happen”.

This is the way of apprentices to Jesus. They engage. Routinely – in humble trusting faith – they converse with him.

August 31, 2023

For Normal People

The guitarist who does the strumming is vital to the exercise of generating attractive sounds. The most artfully crafted instrument only reflects practical worth once it is held and strummed. The instrument’s purpose for being does not get realized until it rests in the musician’s hands. It is here where movement and melody get set in motion.

Probably the most wonderful thing about offering up praises and petitions is the fact that praying is not a solo act. The disciple is not on his own. Any Christ-follower taking up the instrument of prayer in hopes of bearing fruit, does so with the chief maestro closely at hand. “The one who remains in me and I in him”, promises Jesus, “bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”*

As apprentices of Jesus ‘shadow’ his movements – praying, as he often did, passages from the Book of Psalms, etc. – they happily draw upon resources beyond themselves. Just as the first disciples needed help along the way – “Lord, teach us. . .” – the wise seeker after Jesus takes up helpful praying tips from fellow travelers. Guidance offered up in easy-to-grasp ways can usher oxygen into a person’s place of prayer.

A book with an appealing title, How to Pray – A Simple Guide For Normal People, by Pete Greig serves as an example.

A present-day marvel reflecting sustained, fruit-bearing times with God has emerged on the scene. A worldwide movement, organic in its spread, known simply as 24-7 Prayer.

Pete Greig, self-deprecating pastor of a church near London, references himself as “the increasingly bewildered founder of 24-7 Prayer”. The interdenominational movement of prayer, mission and justice got its start in 1999. Since that time, continuous, non-stop praying has taken on a life of its own. Thousands of prayer rooms dotting the earth’s surface have sprung up across more than half the world’s nations. The spread growing.

Our world – ourselves – can stand to gain much from a crisper understanding of and nearer walk with Jesus. What better approach than by entering the sensible, mysterious, Spirit-empowered means available to us, through him.

Lord, teach us to pray.

August 24, 2023August 25, 2023

Means Aplenty

The thing that sparked my interest in guitar was my brother’s interest in guitar (a trait of the junior sibling).

A 25 cent chord book (fingering charts included) paired together with a nine-dollar second-hand acoustic was our father’s investment in us launching our musical enterprise. Tim, giving diligent attention to the chord book, taught himself. And tutored me along as he went. The ‘two-bit’ resource proved priceless.

That modest publication with its folk songs and fingering charts was vital for our picking-and-grinning advancement. Its few pages helped transform my brother, a teenaged guitarist-wannabe, into an effective musician.

In much the same way effective (gratifying, fruit-bearing) communion with God lies within easy reach of any believer. Any who with willing heart chooses in good faith to simply practice.

Praying the words of a select few lines of a Scripture Psalm over and over. Pondering a phrase or a single word. Expressing this or that fervent heart cry as though it were penned by the one now reading and voicing it. This tool alone has helped bring many over time into lives of vibrant communion in God.

Without notes and chords in place the music room lies silent. Without the apprentice’s heart-strings brought to movement in prayer, no life of flourishing in Jesus will bloom.

Finally, discovering that the Christian is not called on to pray perfect prayers brings unspeakable relief. God goes so far as to let us know we are, in fact, quite ignorant when it comes to the spiritual practice we call prayer. What comfort! No need to fake it.

Without apology God reminds us via a terse confession of his tentmaking apostle, “We do not know what to pray for as we ought”*.

With this truth in mind Christ’s apprentices have the door of a whole toolshed flung wide open before them. His treasure-trove of tools (our means) is not restricted to the book of Psalms. Talking with God in our own personal words (nothing fancy, please!) we also have full permission to give voice to a host of prayers offered up across the pages of Scripture.

Consider this.

How might you feel knowing that a friend or family member was earnestly interceding the following for you, “that he might know the love of Christ. . . that she may be filled with all the fulness of God.”?* Be assured, God would be more than pleased our invoking as our own, Paul’s petition. For anyone whose name or image might show up on the radar of our petitioning heart.

August 17, 2023August 16, 2023

Tooling Up

How does the apprentice of Jesus bring about the shift in his prayer life that he really wants and needs? What raw material can he draw on to grow more a participant than spectator?

It is heartening to know that once anyone – anyone – purposes to advance in the holy enterprise of communing with the Almighty, the Lord himself supplies the means. Ingredients called for to see it through. He sees to it that whatever helpful tool, whatever effective resource is needed, it’s there in easy reach.

Any field of human endeavor that results in life-enriching expression does, of course, call for tools.

Great soul-stirring music – whether gentle and melodic (think Bach) or thundering and strident (think Beethoven) – comes to us because of ‘means’. Sheet music, for instance, helps a good bit!

For a long while, especially in the earlier years, I struggled with what to pray. And how to pray as well, with meaning or effectiveness. It was a welcome day when simple tools (helps) got brought to my attention. I confess I felt a bit foolish having passed over some elementary resources that had been available all along. They simply had not registered on my radar. They were also, most likely, being broadcast in lesser measure to the family of faith than today. Thankfully, that is changing.

Opening my Bible (or Bible app) nowadays, I sense a permission in spending time lingering in just one of the many Psalms, returning to it day after day. This grand book of scripture – a prayer book all its own – has proven a treasured onramp (even a camping spot) for the rhythmic set-aside times with God.

Sitting in stillness, welcoming awareness of God’s presence, I can now borrow from the precise language of the man-after-God’s-heart-worshipper himself. Soon it comes to me that I – employing the tools of the Shepherd-king’s language – am worshipping and petitioning out of the wellspring of my interior soul. How encouraging. Lifegiving. Faith has stirred wakefulness – my prayer life made richer in assurance and trust – in boldness and joy.

This by simply lifting the latch and opening the lid of an ancient toolbox: The Book of Psalms.