Tag: childbirth

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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.

©2025 Jerry Lout               * Sacred Rhythms      **Philippians 3:10 (Amp)      ***Galatians 4:19

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A Kind Of Life

“He loves us too much to leave us as we are”

The phrase speaks of God’s heart poised our direction and of his mission to shape us over time to look more and more and more like his Son, Jesus. Why would an apprentice aim for anything less?

If we do, in fact, believe him – if we have entrusted to Jesus our eternal future, claiming him as master of all – what is our place in this relationship?

As we look to him, setting our attention his direction, we literally choose him over our selves. We see this as the only intelligent way to move forward in this life. To trust and respond to his invitation, embracing his instructions in living the good kind of life. The quality and manner of life he himself knew on earth as a human.

His life. That is what he offers, what he calls us to.

Astonishing yet soundly true.

An important truth enters here. As with my friend R.S. and the snail tale, we display through our actions the things that we are coming to believe.

Being forgiven our sins is wondrous and will remain so to every person choosing to follow Christ. Yet this tender provision (being forgiven of all our wrongs) is just the beginning of salvation’s walk.

Forgiveness is a doorway through which we pass to grow, to become like someone we have not fully yet become. Fully resembling Jesus is no small dream. Still, this is our aim. We know it in the deep place of our being. The New Testament brings the thing into very sharp focus.

“My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you*”

Look again at the wording, “in the pains of childbirth”.

Intense, right.

Nothing feels more challenging nor appealing to the apprentice than having his character transformed to well resemble that of the savior. Nothing.

My dinnertime visit to the college campus left my tastebuds stirred. May we now sense God’s open invitation, “Come. Taste. See.”

The richest of flavors await – joy, peace, righteousness, love (and more) – “until Christ is formed in you.”*

Next we may ask, “what is the process then? How does it happen, this ‘becoming like Jesus’? How does the walk unfold?”

The answer is simpler than we likely imagine. One step at a time.

Training is key.

©2022 Jerry Lout                                                                            *Galatians 4:19