fruit-bearing – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

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.

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.

Tag: fruit-bearing

For Normal People

A Knowing