discipline – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

February 26, 2026February 25, 2026

inconspicuous

My friend from Asia had come to faith while studying at an American university. I smiled as he later shared an account of bringing Jesus along to a game of poker.

The family member who invited him for the friendly match had grown indifferent to the faith and was considered a non-believer.

While my friend shuffled the cards his phone stayed busy looping a melodic playlist. As the song “In Christ alone” quietly sounded in the background, the relative was drawn to the tune and began softly whistling along. Soon, she was giving voice to the lyrics in sing-along style.

Reflecting on my friend’s happy retelling of the experience, I realized that he was then and there exercising a spiritual discipline – that of meditation or of contemplation. I was reminded just how the various disciplines or practices, when exercised in everyday life, serve as a powerful means of grace – forming the believer further into Christlikeness.

Jesus meditated. He practiced contemplation in inconspicuous ways – much as any of his fellow human beings might. Consider the 70-plus Old Testament quotes he offered up as he conversed with various individuals and gatherings of people over time. Jesus, the son of God, had purposefully given time down through his earthly years in committing to memory truths that carried real meaning. My Asian friend has, likewise, given himself to scripture memorization – as well as to contemplations on being an active witness to loved ones. He has been following the savior’s lead while aligning with God’s encouraging counsel, to “think on such things”.*

John Mark Comer makes a bold call to the person wishing to grow. “My thesis is simple. Transformation is possible if we are willing to arrange our lives around the practices, rhythms, and truths that Jesus himself did, which will open our lives to God’s power to change.”**

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.”*