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Vine Fed

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.

The Prayer of Serenity line speaks to the resilient nature of life with God, as well as life with one another. Where tender affection and raw sacrifice must mingle.

Simeon and Rebecca’s wedding rang with the uncommon blends of sacred-and-exhilarating, of solemn-and-ecstatic. My friend Roger officiated.

Revisiting some of his prepared notes, several bits of wisdom there stirred my thinking.

. To give your lives away to another is the work of a lifetime.

. You are leaving home to find home.  In some ways you are entering this union having prayed and prepared, knowing what you are saying yes to; and in other ways you have no clue what you are signing up for (here, ‘empathy-laughter’ of already-married couples rippled through the chapel).

The minister continued,

. Jesus invites all of us to walk a narrow way.  Love is always a narrow way that limits our options but expands and fulfills our soul. The wedding aisle is one of those narrow ways.

Roger offered further nuggets. One especially drew me in,

. You’re in a room full of friends and family here to witness this covenant of faithful, steadfast, unconditional, and enduring love.   And it’s why we invite God into this.  Because only His love can empower our love to last a lifetime.  

Only God’s love empowers our love to last, to flourish, to remain nurtured and sustained. To be kept alive.

Can we rally an image in our mind’s eye. . . clusters of ripened fruit suspended from an array of vine-fed branches? Lingering a moment with the picture before us we catch a whisper – an inviting voice – directed to our soul,

“I am the Vine”.

©2023 Jerry Lout                                                                                      *John 15

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Yield Signs

Jesus knows us in closeness. It’s something akin to what we witness in those enduring marriages we most admire. The envy of-the-world ones.

An aged couple, having grown deeper and deeper into oneness with each other over time present a heartwarming picture. It gives substance to a special word of endearment.  Companionship. While other couples speak sorrowfully of having “grown apart”, our two love birds only solidify their union, growing fused as one over their long marital journey. Why is this?

It is not because the two have been spared struggles and hardships. Indeed, intense pain and even trauma may mark such a couple’s history together. After all, what long-term marriage has not weathered some harsh, distressing storms?

Yet, in spite of everything, a mystery seems to be in play. Where deepening, loving companionship ends up actually flourishing – not just surviving. When broad-sided by overwhelming hardship, a surprising number of devoted couples emerge the other side with their marriage not only intact, but healthier than ever!

Marriage – especially Christ-focused marriage – illustrates well (though imperfectly) the beauty of the Christian life. Such a life grows and flourishes in close fellowship with Jesus, issuing from his own tested and proven love.

Every earnest bride who ever pledged “in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse” made the discovery along the way that vows are made for testing.

Likewise, the broad-smiling groom at the altar offering his pledge to love, cherish, protect. . . soon discovers he has entered a long and challenging learning curve.

Adapt – adjust – accommodate.

Married-life language shouts change. The words are marked by tangible elements of sacrifice. They strike at the heart of a wonderful and frightening movement toward growth – the yielding up or adapting of personal will.

And so it is for the Lord’s beloved ones – the love-smitten, fresh-launched followers of Christ. Their pledge is simple, yet sacrificial. Not shallow, not flippant. The pledge is weighty, and glorious. An all-out love-fueled – and practiced – surrender,

“Your will be done”.

©2023 Jerry Lout

 

 

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Green Pastures

Well, what do you know!

The expression of mild astonishment is common. What may not be so common is the understanding of ‘know’.

In Bible language to know speaks routinely of intimate interpersonal nearness. Adam knew his wife and she conceived and bore a son.

We know Jesus, not in his material form but by the Spirit who dwells within us. This level of knowing carries more depth and richness than the ‘tightest’ of human relations.

Rather than overthinking the language of “I never knew you”, what if we caught the reality that Jesus is actually calling us straight from his heart to the exact opposite.

As beloved sheep of his pasture, we turn our gaze away from ourselves and simply choose moving nearer the heart of our good Shepherd. His disciples (his sheep) grow to recognize, then relish, his words,

“My sheep hear my voice. I know them. They follow me”.*

The shepherd and sheep image offers up a good picture of what “abiding in Christ” is to look like.

Good Shepherd-Jesus initiates the relationship, “I have come to seek and to rescue wandering sheep. They are lost”. He lifts us from whatever pit we’ve plummeted into in our strayings. Having come to our rescue, he begins tenderly strengthening the bond between himself and us. This journey into routine closeness moves forward to the measure we respond to his Spirit’s promptings, “They hear my voice. They follow me”.

Every ‘yes’ to the good shepherd’s promptings (in prayer, in sitting with scripture, in worship) fosters more knowing. Intimacy, by its nature requires both parties to engage. Our Lord calls, we lean in to listen. He counsels, we respond as best we know to. We worship, he draws nearer yet.

By such means we find ourselves being changed from within. Our connection with God has shifted. The superficial level of knowing him recedes as he ushers us step by obedient step toward and into to his ‘green pastures’.  Our knowledge of Jesus grows at the interior level and we can’t help but savor the fragrance of his nearness. We are certain we will never be content with anything less than his close, shepherding companionship.

©2023 Jerry Lout

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Near

What is it to know God – to know Jesus?

Turning the question around, what is it to be known by Jesus?  The answer does seem to matter.

Perhaps you, like myself, have puzzled over a phrase Jesus offered up once,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’*

I never knew you.

It seems we are in need of catching the nature of our Lord’s heart. God in Christ became one of us. He shared in our raw flesh and blood humanity. Jesus (remarkably and wonderfully) yearns for closeness to his fellow humans. Yes, God in the flesh longs to be closely known to us, stating even on occasion, “I no longer call you servants, but friends”*.  Jesus doesn’t stop here.

He also – and it is here we can miss a key point – yearns to know us. In this sense ‘knowing’ speaks of closeness. This is not a knowing about factual details of what we creatures are comprised of. Jesus does not see us as machines. We are not devices like a ipad or smart phone held by him.

With our laptops we flip open the lid, press a key here, another there. Presto, the operating system fires up. What sensible person would ever liken such a sterile, mechanical process to a warm, interactive relationship? We know better. We carry feelings, wishes, passions, hopes within our bones.

Our devices are things in our possession that we control and manipulate – hopefully for worthy uses. Creator God on the other hand, in relating to we his image-bearers, is after relationship. Heart and soul, mind and strength. All our being.

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart”.*

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life”.*

God is Spirit and so are we. He seeks worshippers, wonderfully so – living creations akin to himself. Yes, out of all his handiwork we are the unique ones into whom he has breathed life (How do we ever get our heads around this!)

Biblical worshippers are those who happily and with eager hearts, engage their Lord in mutual companionship and love.

(c)2023 Jerry Lout

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A Knowing

His intimate and often practice of prayer brought Jesus into sweet communion with God, his heavenly father. And his praying served as the perfect teaching tool, placing in his disciples’ hands a sure and certain onramp to daily life in God.

Like fruit-bearing branches streaming from a common vine, Christ-followers actually get to see their lives as extensions of his own. They are a band of humble pilgrims anchoring into a new identity. Having become God’s reborn sons and daughters they quickly catch on to the fact that apart from Jesus they can do nothing. Nothing at all. He has become their life source. The Holy Spirit helps keep Jesus ever before their eyes. And, as with priceless treasure discovered in a field, no obstacle on earth will stop them going after it.

So it is that God’s unimpressive tagalongs – his precious apprentices – are set on a course of blossoming and flourishing. His fruit-bearing emissaries.

This sweet communion with God through the practice of prayer is not a thing reserved for Jesus of Nazareth alone.

I think of Frank.

Long ago a young missionary in Western Kenya confided in me, “All that I have learned about how to pray I learned from Frank.”  The young man spoke warmly of his missions colleague and friend.

“Frank didn’t teach me to pray by telling me how to pray. I learned praying by being with Frank when he was praying.”

Apparently, this is how it was with Jesus’ twelve. A longing arose within them that they become pray-ers, because of what they witnessed in their praying Lord. They discerned that their brilliant and beloved rabbi displayed utterly unique qualities. Beautiful and desirable qualities. Like goodness. And joy. And compassion. And humility.

Such qualities, they began seeing, could only be derived from those frequent times he communed in secret with a world they knew little about.

(c)2023 Jerry Lout

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‘Aspiring’

Jesus regularly forms his followers, those whose hearts are poised to grow into his likeness. He just waits on us to make a move. The apprentice grows more like his master by observing and doing the things his master (trainer/mentor) does.

Jesus modeled the practice of praying, for instance. Do you, like me, ever wonder why so many preachers, teachers and scholars write and speak on the subject of prayer? Well, Jesus started it.

Jesus not only taught on prayer. He prayed. A lot.

A. W. Tozer notes that Jesus prayed early in the morning and, at times, throughout all the night. That he prayed both before and after the great events of his life, and prayed “when life was unusually busy”.

Wherever you and I happen to be just now on our discipleship journey, we too may come to him as his early ragamuffin followers did those centuries ago. Bringing before him our earnest appeal about talking with God,

“Lord, teach us to pray.”

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time* If we should search for a single line to sum up a fundamental disposition present in a New Testament disciple, we might begin with that phrase.

It was he who spoke of us walking alongside him, donning an ‘easy yoke’.  It is Jesus who stirs the imagination, offering a word picture of fruit-producing branches. Each branch, each Christ-follower, draws a plentiful supply of life straight from him – the vine. One day at a time. . one moment at a time.

Through his own frequent rhythms of being present to his Father in prayer Jesus modeled the practice for any and every one signing on as his apprentice. The Lord Jesus, more than any other human, understood prayer’s non-negotiable nature. Endurance and flourishing (two longed-for aims of any meaningful life) find their fountain in direct union with God alone. Nothing else quite works.

I am afraid I have sometimes lacked the ‘sanctified ambition’ witnessed now and then in his early disciples when their hunger surpassed their timidity. “Lord, teach us to pray”.

Those of us who count ourselves as apprentices or apprentice wannabes can thank God every day that their appeal was made. “Teach us to pray” may rank as the most worthwhile request ever voiced by any person anywhere.

Apprentices learn by copying what they see in their teacher.

(c)2023 Jerry Lout

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Modeling

“Do as I say – not as I do.”

Come again?

The old eyebrow-raising directive is not one you will hear rolling off the tongue of a  bona fide mentor or coach. Jesus came as rescuer. . .  as savior. But more than this.

Jesus routinely coached and mentored and trained these he loved – his forever companions in life and service. His mission of demonstrating the love and life of God in the earth was not to end  with his return to glory. And it did not.

Jesus’ approach to forming his followers has not changed.

Like any self-respecting rabbi of his day, our Lord modeled a lifestyle his disciples were to emulate. Jesus displayed, by the things he did in his very own body the things his apprentices were to demonstrate in their very own bodies.

If Jesus were to fashion his own catch- phrase in our day to convey his aims for us, something like, “Do as I say and do as I do” might fit comfortably with him.

A touching piece of music out of the past goes, “Make me more like Thee, Jesus, make me more like Thee.” Then, more recently the group Passion released a similar number, “More like You”.

How does Jesus (mentor – coach – trainer) respond when we offer such a plea to him – “make me more like you”?  Can’t we see him turning our direction and calling over to us in his thoroughly compelling manner, “Take my yoke upon you. Learn of me”.  Is it not time to take up his assignment, to learn of and apply whatever varied practices he sets before us. So that now as on-board apprentices, we might implement the kinds of things he prescribes. Living the Christ-life he lived.

Personally, I must confess, it has taken me a long time catching on to this.

I fail at it often.

Able trainer that he is, though, our master does not weary in his coaching. As Paul writes, “love is patient and kind”*.

© 2023 Jerry Lout                                                                         * I Corinthians 13

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Serenity Road

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time.

The phrase follows those widely-read first lines of the Serenity Prayer, “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

That ‘living one day at a time’ thing lies, I think, at the heart of apprenticeship to Jesus. His disciples are common people who have chosen to set their day-by-day lives before him first thing every day. This is their aim and their practice. On some days the aim is not achieved. But the attentive Christ-follower has discovered that living in step with Jesus is the best possible thing one could ever do. Such a community of believers are not detoured by the occasional misstep. They routinely make peace with their own humanity and pick up the one-day-at-a-time rhythm at the sun’s fresh rising of the next day.

Heading into each morning in conscious companionship with Christ may seem like a small thing. It is not.

A truckload of mornings through the years found me emerging from sleep in a fog (sometimes caffeine helps there). But also at times a wave of anxiety or even panic has met me as I’ve contemplated what lay ahead in the coming hours. Not the ideal prescription for an unstressed life like that which Jesus prescribes. Indeed, that ‘easy yoke’ he invites his disciples to can often seem a distant and elusive dream. Can we ponder for a minute a scenario C.S. Lewis paints for us. Does anything resonate? Do we sense an invitation?

“It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.”

If you yearn for the coming-in-out-of-the-wind kind of living, take heart. You and I can find encouragement and hope through a simple first step. By taking a thoughtful look at how Jesus likely got out of bed each day.

©2023 Jerry Lout                                                        *C.S. Lewis  Mere Christianity

 

 

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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.

©2023 Jerry Lout                                                    *1 Corinthians 13; Psalm 23

 

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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.

 ©2023 Jerry Lout

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