family – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

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.

July 20, 2023July 20, 2023

A Family Of Words

Closing my eyes, the simple, melodic sounds of kindergartener voices waft in from a season of long ago. I ponder particular bundle of lyrics we Sunday School kids belted out lots of times in those early years. Intuitively we somehow knew that the lines carried life-altering truth – “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”.

A phrase or two follows the first. Today I realize that way back then I had started a lifelong journey affirming a profound truth drawn from those stanzas.

I am weak but he is strong.

Piano keys sounded in the modest sanctuary on Oklahoma Street. Vacation Bible School Week had arrived!

For the first time most kids in the room are catching glimpses into a brand new kind of worldview, Jesus loves (all) the little children of the world. They are – every one of them – precious in his sight.

Hans Christian Andersen treasured music’s power, “Where words fail, music speaks.”

Yet, one specially-compiled family of words does not fail. Not to the person whose mind and spirit are open to take them in. The words of scripture. Although ancient in origin, this unique collection of prophetic, historical, poetic works embody a power. A power which today and throughout history transforms people. . . and even times and cultures.

As I (among the millions of others) undertook memorizing Bible verses in my early years and following, I became struck by its life-changing power from the inside out. Not by any magical quality or spooky spell, but because its content is traced not to mere human origin.

I have always been an amateur memorizer at best. But scripture concepts like, I hide your words in my heart so that I may not be habitually given to wrongdoing, find a way of sticking. I find that such passages transport power straight into the soul that chooses to marinate within the ancient text. Inspiration bubbles up of the kind beyond the sheer rah-rahs of the athletic court or stadium. The ancients, I believe, had it profoundly right.

May I encourage the reader. Pursue the Bible. Seek out a community (if it is not currently your practice) that loves God. A gaggle of imperfect seekers, hungry and thirsty, strong after his Word.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thought and intentions of the heart.*

January 12, 2023January 12, 2023

Assigned

I had known him before our class meeting that day in the early ‘80s. But the friendship grew once X-tray Tech Haniel Karithi joined the studies in a theology program I supervised.

Apprenticing to Jesus means – among other things – stretching one’s self. Allowing him to prompt us to God-sized assignments.

Sometime after our many weekly extension classes, Haniel, with his wife, Peninah sensed a stirring. They felt God’s call to relocate.

Young children in tow, Haniel and Peninah would leave their home in the lush, fertile highlands of Mt Kenya. They would begin serving Jesus in a different kind of place. Among a different kind of people.

After long hours of bus travel northward along paved, then dusty roads, the little family arrived at Marsabit town. Then to villages beyond. Life all around them felt foreign. The northern frontier district featured a landscape harsh, dry, brutally hot.

Years before Haniel had applied himself as an apprentice to master skills in medical technology. Now in this new world of strangeness, he (and his wife) entered a different sort of apprenticing. Haniel and Peninah gave themselves to grow. Learning of and adjusting to new sights and sounds and flavors. Food – Music – Customs – Dress – Language. Change was tough going at times. They pressed on, praying, trusting, hoping.

The couple yielded themselves more and more. They sensed Jesus’ deep care toward a people group lacking any knowledge of him, or of God’s grace.

Every believer (every follower-of-Christ) is called to discipleship. If the Bible says anything true about Christians it is that they are a people engaged. They pursue the way of God. They do this imperfectly. Yet, God’s Spirit aids them. Their prize and goal is love, always love.

Probably only a few people on the planet are invited by God to change their zip code for the Sahel Region of Africa. Yet, an adventure beyond imagining awaits every single Christ-follower who offers an obedient ‘yes’. Our ‘yes’ is relational at its core.

Yes, I’ll move nearer to Jesus than where I have been lately. Yes, with his aid I will turn my ear toward his voice. Then, do the same again, until a pattern forms.

Common folks like Haniel and Peninah remind us such a kind of living is within reach. Apprenticing to Jesus is doable.

Help me, Lord, would you? Help me trust. Place about my shoulders your ‘easy yoke.

December 1, 2022December 1, 2022

Help En Route

Taking Jesus Christ as both our destination (our full human aim) and our with-God companion, we soon realize (or likely should) that our basic life focus really must change. To quote John the Baptizer, “He (Jesus) must increase, I must decrease.” After all, a Jesus-resemblance does not naturally spring forth through this jar of clay which God unflatteringly labels “dust”.

We ask God to lend a hand in training us to live as we are designed to live. He does better, not giving merely his hand but his entire self.

Here is how I think this “with-Jesus” living works.

First, he shows to us our need of getting rescued. Next he rescues us through sacrificially dying and then resurrecting. By this means Jesus has supplied us with something incalculable – forgiveness of all wrongs. All.

This is the start.

God now sets us on an entirely new path by which we along with others shall walk. Jesus shares with us his life and his kind of living here, now, in this broken world.

Also, quite amazingly, God introduces another element. He supplies a Helper – a living, empowering personal helper to aid us throughout. Holy Spirit (the Helper) moves into our lives.

Jesus makes clear that his gracious, all-powerful Holy Spirit is now among us to work mightily in shaping us to grow ever more like our master.

Under the Spirit’s empowering and in the guidance of God’s Word, the Bible, we proceed forward taking wonderful baby steps, in living as Jesus lives. Furthermore, we are helped at nearly every turn by other fellow disciples.

Do we tremble a little with fear? Are we uncertain of what our tomorrows hold? Surely.

Still, faith and love tug us forward. Confidence in him has taken root.

Family members – those other imperfect but forward-moving disciples – travel with us and we with them. We are indeed an imperfect, sometimes struggling company of persons. Some have employed the term, Ragamuffins. Our aim is Jesus.

We want above all else to be with Jesus and to grow to love like him – to give like him, and to laugh and to weep and to serve like him.

The one way this happens is in spending time with Jesus. Often simply one-on-one, but also with him in the presence of those “others” of his family. They need us. We need them.

Our coming to fully resemble who Jesus is in the world is no sprint.

But in the company of his grace we are set. We lean in.

December 9, 2015August 28, 2017

Light Journey

A Christmas Tale that might have been

Balthazar rolled to his side. Though he had slept, he was long from home and, thus, not well rested. Besides, slumber is meant for night time. His eyes opened to barely a sliver and held there. Pulling in a slow breath he noticed – even with his sliver of vision – the light in his tent had diminished.

I must rally. The sun will soon be down, dark of night will blanket us. He smiled. Then the star will ease into view. Already pre-travel action had set in beyond the tent – servants fussing with saddle bags, a camel protesting with three loud snorts, the cinching of her belly harness.

Heydar! The call of surprise – almost of alarm – sounded beyond the tent flap. And a second time. Heydar! Wait, we are coming!

Balthazar’s eyes widened fully. Worry creased his forehead. What misfortune’s come to my foremost servant, Heydar?

The caravan – its multi-blend of culture and language – was now months into its westward trek. Balthazar – and his fellow magi (Gaspar and Melchior) to be sure – began sensing in recent days a soon arrival to their destination. Still, they could not be certain. Indeed there was little of which they were certain. Ever since leaving the familiar – the predictables of home, of family.

The one sure thing about all this – the indisputably sure thing – was the mandate, a curious stirring of destiny. They each felt it – The worship compulsion he privately tagged it. Indeed, he thought wryly – as surely as the nostrils of Gaspar’s camel expels the foulest breath of all Mesopotamia’s beasts – the magi were called Westward. A mandate. From the heavens. And after no small attention to the starry bodies and no meager energies making ready for the trek. . . Well, to this place they had come. Thus far.

Ah, but what of Heydar? And – (a secondary thought) what of tonight’s fire?.Balthazar was hurrying now toward the commotion.

The great sun was lower. A chill settling over the craggy landscape.

They had camped here in this hostile terrain from after sunup this morning – here where rocks were many and trees few. The full caravan staying put, as they had on each day previous at each day’s location. Until darkness arrived – and, with it – the star. Among the last of Heydar the servant’s tasks this day was to gather and bring firewood – for it was Balthazar and his company’s turn to make ready the fire for all the travelers.

Heydar limped into camp, aided by two companions and leaning much into a gnarled makeshift walking stick – the stick of a dead tree. It hardly seemed fit to bear his weight. Indeed, in that moment, a sharp crack – the stick snapped beneath him. Heydar staggered past the reach of his fellows and dropped to a knee. He stifled a cry and grimaced – his hand reaching low to rend comfort to his throbbing limb.

Master, Heydar called momentarily to the approaching Balthazar. Forgive me, my lord. While gathering sticks a viper startled me, I leapt. And, though spared the sting of its fang, I lost footing and plunged my ankle into a crevice, twisting it sorely. I have no wood for the fire, my lord, save for what remains of this pitiful acacia stick.

Heydar’s master consoled him briefly, ordered the others to see the servant to his tent. Then he, Balthazar, turned. Facing the way from which his servant had just come, the magi, with care, ventured forward. I am not so advanced in years to fail the task of gathering fuel for our last dining in this place. Still, the land had darkened much in these moments.

Balthazar paused. As he stood – with quiet and dark all about him – he discovered at the ground ahead of him the forming of a murky outline of his body.

Ah, my shadow! The landscape brightened. Enough to detect the terrain, and a fallen tree out ahead. Before moving to it he turned about and looked up, seeking the source of the light.

Ah, the old man smiled. Of course.