grace – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

April 9, 2026April 9, 2026

Promising Outcomes

*Note to my Dear readers. My weekly postings here are, as of today’s entry, drawing to a close. At least for the present. I cannot adequately express my gratitude for your faithfulness in journeying with me on this more than ten-year journey. Meanwhile, as I continue in the writing craft (focusing for now on reviewing and editing unpublished content), I request and treasure your prayers. A big thanks to all who have left comments on the jerrylout blog entries along the way. Each one has brought wind to the sails. Bless you! Please consider shooting your email address to me if you would like to receive our ‘Jerry and Ann Updates’, which go out monthly. In due time, God willing, further hard copy and e-book publications will be announced. Stay tuned. Warmly in Christ, Jerry

Over our years of marriage, Ann and I have spent a lot of time in each other’s company. We routinely live our lives in an almost continuous state of interaction. We eat together. We travel together (whether to Aldis or to Africa,). We share the same lodging arrangements. We pray together. We talk. We joke and laugh with one another.

Ann and I grieve together – consoling, comforting one another (words not always required), in seasons of pain or of sorrowing loss.

As with most husband-wife relationships, Ann and I have grappled with and navigated through plenty of the differences that mark us as distinct individuals. We still grapple at times. Some of the differences that characterize us could be easily detected by any third-party observer. But the fact that we are unique and that we differ from one another in plenty of ways, does not threaten our commitment in walking this journey together. The vows we voiced to one another long ago (before the coming of children, and of grands, and of great grands) remain current. Our pledge, by God’s grace, holds fast and remains as binding as ever.

Many couples find that rhythms of simply being in each other’s lives do factor in, helping to establish and reinforce their lasting bond. One that even mirrors the spirit and language of the marriage covenant itself. Through grace.

So, we meet the encouraging principle again. In grace, healthy, routine practices, undertaken in good faith translate somehow into “training”.

Where a well-tended garden is stewarded under the care of a seasoned gardener, fruitbearing happens.

March 26, 2026

Wings Of Assurance

The “training wheels” metaphor often serves well in life. No one gains much headway in growth skills apart from the element of training.

Equipping. Tutoring. Apprenticing. All are treasured words in the training enterprise.

Without guidance and up-close assistance in our learning process start accumulating a nasty assortment of bumps and scratches and bruises. Like many-a-kid who excitedly took up bike-riding for the first time. Plunging in with an eager self-confidence – but all alone. Left to ourselves, things seldom end well.

When a believer sets out to grow in their earnest hope of taking on the character and likeness of Jesus Christ, a simple adjustment in approach can make a telling difference. Assurance finds wings. Confidence in the Christ’s “with-ness” replaces feelings of being stranded without fuel or compass. And, God’s very engagement with us lessens the prospects of our getting ambushed by the fear of failure or of succumbing to the boredom of a purposeless existence.

In a pilgrimage that is shared among people marked by a growing love for one another, words like boredom and drudgery simply drop away. In their place come robust terms like adventurous. . . invigorating.

Receiving heaven’s grace that transports a Christ-follower more fully into “life in the kingdom”, means that something called partnering practices are summoned. Engaging the practices is anything but cumbersome.

“Whither Thou Goest” is a lyric my brother sang at my wedding. The years that followed saw my bride trekking with me from her Montana home, on then to Texas. After that, New York and Africa and places beyond. Our wedding vows held substance for Ann and me.

New (and routinely renewed) union in Christ bears similar features. Unrelenting love is marked by choice. It is orienting one’s life each day to keep walking in step with the beloved.

Growth in grace (God acting in our life), explains Dallas Willard, “is something we must plan for by regular engagement in activities that enable us to receive God’s grace in all areas (of our lives)”. Professor Willard’s statement brings clarity to what is fundamentally called for in the life of a Christian convert. And, all through the remainder of the disciple’s life.

In truth, a lifelong journey of deepening companionship with Jesus is the thing a disciple longs for. It is what they are fashioned to live into. Nothing less will sustain a person on the long path of flourishing to which we are called in the faith pilgrimage.

January 29, 2026January 28, 2026

Fuel For The Road

The self-confessed Bible History and Language Nerd Tim Mackie sees Jesus of Nazareth as “utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have.”* Mackie is one of millions of believers who have found Jesus to be the “supreme treasure”, the “priceless pearl” referenced in Christ’s own parables. For such disciples, there is nothing that brings more satisfaction and joy than living out their Christ-centric lives in the power of grace.

Grace-fueled.

It is said that grace is God acting in our life, to do what we cannot do on our own. Consider a mighty rocket, launching astronauts up and away from planet earth – out and beyond her powerful pull of gravity. Now think of the amount of rocket fuel needed to bring about such a feat.

Christians are persons who depend upon the “fuel” of grace – not just to gain forgiveness of their wrongs – which is amazing. The disciple of Jesus routinely “burns” more grace than a lunar-bound rocket burns fuel at lift-off.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age”**

Still, while grace is essential in walking out the Christian faith, the believer’s participation is vital.

Learning to ride a horse well (in that confident, pleasurable style witnessed in a good Western movie) calls for observing and engaging some practical things. The result then (resting easily in the saddle, rolling with the horses cadence when she’s walking, trotting, galloping, or turning) comes easily. Surprisingly so. All that is typically needed is (a) desire to master the art of horseback riding, (b) paying attention to detail and (b) engaging in repeated practice.

Two of my granddaughters grew up overseas. In a matter of weeks after Claire and Grace started showing up at South Africa’s Ladybrand Village for riding lessons, they had taken on the look of seasoned cowgirls. How? They aspired. They paid attention. They trained.

A growing number of Christ-followers, regardless their “place” in the journey, have sensed a stir. A robust appetite after him has taken hold, and they are pivoting toward the preferred way, the more satisfying way. Some of these precious souls are (for the present) occupying spaces outside formalized church structures. Whatever the case, increasing numbers of hungry believers are shifting toward a vibrant with-God life of flourishing in Christ. In some cases, whole communities of the faithful have chosen to re-center afresh upon God. Moved, empowered by his extravagant grace.

August 7, 2025August 6, 2025

Leaning In

Thelma had lugged her suitcase onto a cross-country bus. Clyde had leapt aboard the moving box car of a west-bound train. Their vision for a new life together was matched by Intention. Without purposeful action any vision – noble as it may be – will plateau, then die.

Mom and dad’s dream of a more hopeful future was matched by their “on-purpose” action. The only remaining element had been the means. Enter Greyhound Lines and the Santa Fe railways. Any vision that is brought to a place of fruition calls for actionable intention and for “vehicles” (useful, practical means) to see the vision through.

My wife’s high school clarinet served as her means, on which she practiced long hours (intention) to achieve her aspiration. Her vision of performing as a top-level musician in Billings, Montana’s West High band.

The V.I.M. (Vision – Intention – Means) principle holds just as true for the disciple of Jesus Christ in their spiritual-life formation. A disciple, in other words, is a Jesus-follower who has set out on a lifelong journey, daily incorporating all three of those needed elements.

Practice Makes Complete

Most of us are acquainted with the well-worn “practice makes perfect” adage. While walking with God for sure calls us to an ongoing progress in our growing-up-lives in the faith, we are urged to aim for something different than perfection. At least in the way we often think of that word.

When the New Testament writer states, “whoever says he abides in him (Jesus) ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”*, he is not suggesting that a Christ-follower lives a life of flawless perfection. That measure of excellence would be – as the saying goes – “above our pay grade.”

What the disciple is called to leaves the devotee amazed. Inside the heart of the Christ-follower a vision is birthed. But the “visionary” is not left to muddle through on his own steam. A living, all-present person, with shoulder-aplenty to lean into, has come alongside. **The Holy Spirit of God inspires and enables as the apprentice proceeds forward, haltingly at times for sure, still employing the indispensable components – intention and means. Being called to,

“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. . “***

April 3, 2025April 2, 2025

Seasons Rhythms

Nothing comes to Spring save through Winter.

Since the long-ago decade when I first snagged this anonymous quote (sketching it there in the flyleaf of my Bible) its wisdom has revisited me often. On my better days I’ve paid attention.

Over coffee a friend and I puzzled, “Would it be possible for us humans to appreciate and honestly savor the good of life without drinking of the hard – the ‘difficult’ – of life?”

Winter preceeding Spring. As a pre-toddler I met with an episode of Polio that left me with a forever limp. This was followed by yet another tangle with the same nasty virus shortly before I celebrated my tenth birthday. This encounter nearly ended my life.

In the case of both these afflictions, Spring emerged, a Springtime of thankfulness. Even now a smile of gratitude visits my eyes and face.

A winter of wanderings as a stubborn, self-willed teen somehow gave way to sunshine’s warmth in the form of generously forgiving parents and persistent, rescuing Lord. Exodus 34:6 puts it well, “the Lord, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love”

When an esteemed institution misconstrues motives and stridently calls into question a team member’s integrity. Winter

When self-reflection, prayer, and straightforward dialogue seasoned with grace characterize engagement with whatever ‘powers that be’. Spring.

And on the personal front. Where long Wintry seasons of remorse, fed by insecurities from mistakes and general brokenness, dog the soul. To such a dreary scene, what an unspeakable relief comes when one awakes one morning to the drenching of the sunlight of grace through an East window.

When Spring begins to dawn, signaling Winter’s soon retreat, no one needs declare it to us. The gray cold must yield.

It is time.

August 8, 2024August 7, 2024

Traction

A long Obedience in the same Direction.

Eugene Peterson’s book title strikes a chord in the heart of any who long for a joyous, unmasked walk with the Lord.. Apprenticeship to Jesus, while not for the faint of heart, yields dividends worthy of whatever time, effort and steady believing are called for.

Journeying with my ragamuffin C.R. buddies in the care of Roger’s guidance resulted in my celebrating more than one ’Twelve-step completion day’ event. I had been called upon in each of the nine-month-long treks to go toe-to-toe with an artificial defense mechanism. Denial. Some counselors contend that patterns of denial serve as a means for the brain to justify one’s addictive actions. I resonate. But am amazed at the power of raw honesty when embraced over the long journey of transformation.

Once an esteemed leader who had given many decades in godly service was approached by a young man with a question. He hoped to glean wisdom from the Christian sage regarding the pervasive fight against sexual sin. “Dr. D”, he asked, “could you tell me at what age a man moves beyond having to resist the pull of temptation?”

The minister (now in his eighties) responded with a query of his own, “Young man, once you learn the answer to that question, would you please inform me?”

Professor Willard of USC makes a masterful case in understanding that “grace is for whole life and not just for forgiveness. Grace is God acting in one’s life to accomplish what one cannot or will not do on one’s own. Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning*”.

Leaning in to embrace and act upon such truths – continuing my pilgrimage in wholeness – brings immense assurance. Praises ever. To the divine father, to Jesus the beloved Son, and his indwelling Spirit.

April 11, 2024April 10, 2024

Stated Intent

A brilliant and beloved Southern California professor was fond of urging his fellow believers to live life on purpose, employing principles which he dubbed VIM.

Those lives that bear the marks of wholeness and flourishing for the good, Dallas Willard contended, tend to stem from persons who have firmly embraced Vision (the first letter of the acronym).

Alongside Vision come Intention and Means. Our infant ministry on the Tulsa campus – testing its wobbly legs with gangly stops and starts that are common to the very young – had started hammering out our Intention piece.

Just what were we sensing that God actually wanted? What would bring a ready smile to his magnificent countenance?

Jim Garton and I set out to give it our best in crafting a mission statement. It was clear that International Student Ministries needed one.

What shall we count as ISM’s Intention (the aim or aims that could be counted on to mark us and keep us grounded and focused through coming years). While we understood that a mission purpose can be tweaked and that often the best of aims can meet with course corrections, we felt daily the gravity of this assignment. It weighed on us.

At long last, with a lot of needed grace from above, we landed the plane.

The stated purpose carried two crucial features, neither of which could be realized apart from the other. Students needed to be able to enjoy the assurance that they are genuinely welcomed and cared about. Relationship must be key, with Christ’s tangible love and presence the heartbeat of it all.

The team’s next newsletter to be rolled out would herald our reason for being. Our Intention:

International Community Outreach exists to glorify God by meeting practical and spiritual needs of international students, through acts of service and through the proclamation of the gospel of Christ.

With our stated mission now in place, all that remained was to live it out!

This was to take some doing.

February 23, 2023February 23, 2023

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.

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

January 22, 2016August 28, 2017

Rhythm

I think we all need – really need, this to navigate life.

My friend Roger continued. Bringing less frazzle, more sanity. More life. Roger, was on a roll. Not unlike a drum roll.

When I hear drum rolls or things to do with foot-tappings, knee-slappings, fingertip-rappings, I think, Cody.

Not the Cody, Wyoming of other blog posts here recalling bus rides westward, motorcycle adventure, romance.

Rather the Cody from Southeast Oklahoma – my first grandson. Is he twenty-two now – Really?

For years his hands, wrists, even shoulders have unleashed pulsating energies.

What’s that distant rat-a-tat? More than one head-scratching visitor has posed the question to my daughter – his mother. She smiles, Oh, that’s Cody out in the game room. Drumming.

Distracted family members have implored little drummer boy – Umm, Code-man, could you ease up on the finger tapping. Focusing on our card game ain’t going well.

From eighth grade he began wowing us (grandparent bragging rights are constitutionally-protected.) Ten years beating away on drum heads, cymbals, chests of drawers, kitchen counters, bathroom mirrors, pickup hoods. God be praised he drums in rhythm.

Our lives need rhythm, Roger went on. My wife and I take a ‘couch time’ break most days. Breaking for fifteen minutes from all the action swirling around us. To connect, to catch up. To be in each other’s worlds. On purpose.

Rhythms. On Purpose.

Call them practices. Call them disciplines.

Whatever we call them – practices, disciplines – thoughtful people weave them into their calendar. Stewarding ebbs and flows of on-purpose living. On purpose.

Much like ancient Jesus-followers did, like mothers and fathers of the faith did – century by century.

Like the master Jesus himself did,

“Rising a great while before day he went into a solitary place, and there prayed”.

And Paul, “as his custom was he entered the synagogue”. Prayer, Scripture, Church community, Service, Solitude, Rest, Labor.

I ponder such a list and an appetite stirs. I’m homesick to ebb and flow like this, in my own design.

As surely as I am made for God, I’m made for rhythms. He moves in, takes up more space in my affections. Helps me live my design.

Going to Youtube I watched several drummers – really accomplished drummers. Not all were specimens of health. So physically disabled were some they struggled to mount the drum stool. Then magic took over. How?

Their disciplines – repeated practicings – carried them to astonishing mastery. Melodious thumpings and swishings, clangings and tappings easily flow from their wrists and hands. Amazingly they have long stopped thinking their limbs into action. The body takes over. It is trained.

Such is the way of the Jesus-follower. More becoming his, in the ebb and flow of spiritual disciplines. Trusting his help, his ready strength at every step. Entering the easy yoke.

“I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” -Jesus

March 22, 2016August 28, 2017

Evidence of a Resurrected Carpenter

There in the Africa savannah where flat-topped acacia trees dot the landscape, a young cattle-tender was seized by thieving attackers. He tried to seek refuge among his father’s herd, the bounty his assailants were after. The horrifying moments raced like short distance sprinters toward the finish tape until the boy was seized and beaten to death by these neighboring tribal warriors.

When I learned the news, words like heartless and senseless sprang to my young missionary mind.

In the thinking of the tribesmen who had slain the boy merely for his father’s cows, there was nothing senseless about their deed. For generations nomadic lore had dictated that all cattle were created by God as a gift for their people. Any and all means to retrieve what was rightfully ours was deemed justifiable. The retrieving of cattle was in fact, to them, a kind of duty.

Pastor Nathan was alerted of his young brother’s death by the high-pitched wailing of nearby village women. Afterwards, through the grapevine medium common to rural Africa, word of the tragedy made its’ way to our mission station some miles away.

I mounted my orange and aging Suzuki dirt-bike. With fidgety forefinger and thumb I ran my helmet strap through the cinch ring and secured it beneath my chin. Pastor Nathan needed a friend nearby – even a relatively new friend whose culture and land were much different from his own. I hoped to somehow be such a friend.

Aware of an involuntary tensing of my eyebrows, I tried to push back my growing sense of lack. Comforting loved ones who’ve experience the quiet and expected death of, say, an aged family member can be daunting enough. But this defied classification.

What will I say an hour from now once my piki-piki is brought to a dusty halt and I enter the humble, thatch-roofed hut? How do I myself digest such troubling news. How do I frame words to comfort a grieving young pastor whose brother just lost his life in this brutal way?

Bwana Ah-see fee-weh. Nathan, only barely my junior, offered a warm smile – greeting me with the Swahili words, “the Lord be praised”. Though the most common of greetings among believers, the words seemed unusual (maybe less than fitting?). We were near a tree at the elevated ridge of East Africa’s Great Rift Valley. The Lord be praised?

Nathan was a modest and gentle spiritual shepherd, entrusted with the care of a small Christian community. He had labored as pastor just under two years – this with little formal Bible training. But Nathan’s heart was rooted in Christ’s love and in his clear calling to serve.

We sipped hot chai and spoke in a softer, more subdued manner than usual. Finally I rallied my best voice to offer comfort. This would not be easy.

In unusual irony, Nathan sympathized with me in my struggle. His eyes conveyed compassion. He leaned forward in his simple, primitive-like chair. Its crude design was more suited for one given to half-reclining than to sitting.

Brother Jerry, he began, I want to say something.

It was my turn to lean in and listen.

I forgive these men who have done this thing. I forgave them actually once I learned of the sad event.

Was I hearing correctly? Not a trace of insincerity belied his calm, low voice. The faint tilting of my head along with some puzzlement in my look provoked him onward.

I know these people do not understand the badness of what they have done. They do not know. They do not understand. They need Jesus and I have begun praying for them that they should know him and gain his peace.

Listening to this humble shepherd-leader I was perplexed. I felt myself deeply moved. And I was suddenly aware.

I was aware of the presence of God. Here, just beneath the long grass weavings forming the roof of this Kuria home. I was seated in Solomon’s magnificent, newly-dedicated temple of the Living God. I was next to Isaiah, trembling at heaven’s voices crying Holy, Holy in the hallowed sanctuary. And the earthen floor under my feet might have easily dictated with hushed voice that I remove my shoes.

A reversing of roles had occurred. I, the missional teacher had come to give comfort. I sat voiceless now as the young, ill-educated, near-impoverished pastor had stepped up – so to speak – to his lectern. His non-sermon to me, this audience of one, conveyed with conviction and decisive action the message of an ancient, extravagant grace. Radical forgiveness issuing from one baptized in mercy.

The Lord be praised. Indeed.