Tag: Holy Spirit

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In Pursuit

Although her length and breadth boasts an imposing 1.7 million square miles and hosts a vast mix of ethnicities, each individual inhabitant of the Indian Subcontinent is ‘a story being written’. Through the many years since our meeting, Nuren’s story leaves me smiling and, frankly, in wonder.

When Nuren arrived in Michigan he brought with him a rich heritage of India family and culture. Hearing Nuren recall his grandfather’s role in shaping his life is itself an excursion into a generations-long treasure. While his Hindu upbringing instilled elements that framed some of his worldview, Nuren’s insatiable quest for deeper meaning gave rise to relentless questions.

When a married couple, Amit and Glory – also from India and also student-residents in the Wolverine State – happened to cross paths with Nuren, a bond of friendship began forging. So much so that when the couple moved to Tulsa on a snowy January day for Amit’s further studies, their friend Nuren found every excuse to stay in touch.

Through a host of phone visits and added long drives to Tulsa, Nuren’s questions about the intersection of personal life and the Christian faith were earnestly posed. In a sustained environment of warmth and hospitality, his friends in T-town never wearied of the visits. To the contrary, Amit and Glory continually welcomed their keen-minded, inquisitive friend. Glory’s tasty curries found their way to the simple dining table around which robust questions and the occasional prayer were brought forward.

On a warm Summer day a couple of years after Nuren’s first Tulsa visit, we gathered at the home of veterinary friend Jim Osborn. The water temperature of Jim and Pam’s above ground pool was just right.

While further questions (some not yet thought of) would remain unaddressed for a time, our hungry-for-truth friend Nuren was ready to respond to Jesus’ call, “Come, follow”.

A fresh dry towel appeared. Broad smiles, perhaps a tear or two, touched the faces of several gathered. Glory and Amit beamed. We entered the pool.

“So now, upon the profession of your faith. . in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. . .”

©2024 Jerry Lout

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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.

© 2022 Jerry Lout

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Ticket Home

As Albert Einstein was anxiously searching underneath and around his passenger seat during a train journey, a conductor took in the scene. Stopping then, he assured the physicist, “Dr. Einsten, don’t worry, I know who you are. We all know who you are. There’s no problem. You don’t need a ticket. I am sure you bought one.”  The famed but flustered scientist replied, “Young man, I too know who I am. What I don’t know, is where I am going!”

The amusing account strikes a chord in many who hope for deeper clarity about life and where it is meant to lead. Indeed, some feel uncertain whether they have yet boarded the train.

Followers of Jesus – people who have made an on-purpose decision to know him and be transformed by him – are often found appealing to God for help.

“Please grant to me the courage to change things about myself which you know need changing”. This is a raw, gutsy prayer. The appeal suggests that the disciple is taking seriously his call to apprentice under Jesus.

The honest Christ-follower who sees something within himself needing serious renovation moves to action. Praying has proven a good and much-traveled entryway into God, his word, his presence and help.

When, as a high school senior I defied my parent’s wise but firm counsel, my stubborn behavior resulted in a radical change of address. Moving to another town in another state more than 700 miles from home. No small matter.

In prayer we pause. We shift our attention, sometimes quite awkwardly, away from our own dysfunctional selves. The Holy Spirit is given space to work. He brings us (as we listen) toward a change of mind. And often signals to our hearts an avenue by which some troubling thing may get resolved. My “road back home” began when life started unraveling. Desperate, I called to God in prayer. A blubbering phone visit to my parents followed and soon I (and they) tasted the good fruit of my repentance and our reconciliation.

Wrongdoings that arise from our foolish or sinful choices do not make for pleasant travel companions. Then an old adage percolates in our mind, “Prayer changes things”.

Life Transformation Onramps offered us through Holy Scripture and by way of the Spirit’s guidance take us to a place that is bigger and fuller and grander than we might have dreamed. Here we find ourselves merging straight onto the thoroughfare of wholeness. It is a place where our entire being gets put right over time.  The missing ticket is found. We are coming to know who we are and where we are going.

©2022 Jerry Lout

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Prevailing Mercy

Struggles and questionings aside, the call to serve helped anchor me. I believed the Lord had work for me to do and I pressed ahead, knowing he loved me, that he was after my best, regardless. Even as I wrestled with a sense of unworthiness and the feeling at times I was a junky heap of damaged goods, the assurance of his care sustained me. I knew who deserved credit. Not me, that was for certain.

So where some useful cause might arise – sponsoring a student, leading a class, encouraging a co-laborer (of my own culture or another) – I felt at home there. The discordant clamorings of unhealthy desire quieted for me most in such times. Times I poured out my energies, my prayers for others.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise*. The ancient passage consoled me again and again through my bitter-sweet years. Laying my wounded heart before him was all I knew to do. Turning myself over to his mercy, repeatedly, sincerely. All that the Father gives me shall come to me; and he that comes to me I will in no wise cast out*. Rehearsing such verses before him tethered me. His Mercy remained a constant. Ever meeting me in my places of brokenness, never condemning while never at the same time ‘giving me a pass’.

Regret – shame – contrition – repentance – thanksgiving. The cycles continued, ending every time at the door of mercy. Mercy from one nearer than a brother. Jesus. Friend of sinners.

My theme verse may well have read something like the following.

“I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. . . It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. . .” (Romans 7, the Message)

Notions of dodging responsibility, passing the buck, excusing my wrongs held no attraction. I knew what disobedience felt like, knew wrong-doing, wrong-thinking, wrong-fantasizing when it entered the neighborhood. Like a drug-detecting dog, my conscience picked up transgression’s scent. The buck stopped with me.

Those times in Christian culture were such that few religious communities – wherever found – seemed able to walk with their people through the mine fields of sexual brokenness. There were likely more caregivers available than we knew. That was the part of the problem. They weren’t known.

Occasionally through my overseas years a handful of struggling men would surface, gravitating together for encouragement and prayer. I linked up with such a group for a season. The effort was commendable as far as it went. Yet, although we did not intend to purposefully avoid certain topics – like sexual purity – we did. Each of us lived in Africa where wild game abounded, yet we always managed to ignore the elephant always in the room.

A day would eventually come when Missions agencies, church councils and team leaders would, in compassion, open doors that had been long shut to needful conversation. To counsel, to pray with the broken and their spouses. During the times we were in, however, many in Christian service simply did the best they could to forge ahead. Pretty much in silence, managing demons. Some, myself included, muddled along for years. The Holy Spirit graciously watched over our wounded, transgressing, saved-yet-fractured souls. We mercifully made it through without falling as casualties. We brought with us some scars, no question, yet still moving forward. Limping with rays of hope, our marriage companions often our greatest source of strength.

For other men, their suffering goes on undisclosed, unaddressed, even today. Their pain real, their wounds deep, shame binds them and replays a false narrative in their mind. . . there is no place to turn.

May these gain help. Through the Friend. Through His children, his wounded healers.

Like those I would one day find.

©2017 Jerry Lout   *Psalm 51 *John 6:37

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Invitation

The membrane-cloaked calf lay still from exhaustion on the dew-soaked Bermuda grass. The little bull had, the past few seconds with the gallant aid of his mama, thrust his way outward from her womb and into Autumn’s sharp early-morning  air.

Wanting to grow to be like Jesus comes naturally for any born-anew believer. It is as natural a thing as conception – gestation – birthing and maturing are natural to reproductive life.

The progression, in fact, sounds normal. That is because it is normal. The thing that does not come naturally (automatically) for the believer, though, is the actual doing it. . . becoming like Jesus. At least not for a good while. Not for most.

Transformation to Christlikeness, however, is not unrealistic. Nor is it such a hard thing to make headway in. The issue that makes growing into the likeness of Jesus most difficult is likely our simple lack of know-how. This had been true for me, no question. I wanted change like crazy. Make me like you, Jesus. I just didn’t know how to start getting there.

Reflective musings

So, moving from being a ‘not-much-like-Jesus’ person to becoming very much like him. Are there ways to go about this, ways to understand how?  Can there be things, we press the matter further, “hands-on, practical things – I could learn to do? Could do together with Him, leading me to pleasurable rhythms of Christ’s joy, his love, service, character and life. . . For real? That I could grow to live in that curious easy yoke he seemed to matter-of-factly invite us to?”

Easy yoke? The easy had eluded me. And for quite a long time. How could I start, where to begin?

The birthing language helps me get a handle on something.

“Oh, my dear children!” Paul writes. “I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives” (Galatians 4.19  NLT)

The fellow credited for writing much of the New Testament uses here the birthing metaphor to help us catch the idea of God’s means of bringing the change we yearn after. We catch a feeling too for how passionately the Holy Spirit wishes this for us. Labor pains. We can’t help getting the feeling he really means it. Christ – radically developing us, reproducing his nature and character within our lives. Freely. Easily. . . Remarkable.

For a good while – decades actually – I struggled over this thing. A discussion, mostly silent, went on in my head and my heart.

  1. Once a person is saved, brought to faith in Christ, a new beginning has launched, right.

The believer isn’t born into the family of faith to stay an infant. We are born to develop, to grow in the faith, to mature, be transformed. We are to get better at being a Christian. This is what he is saying, what he is after.

Every child of God, every one of us, is handed the oxygen-charged assignment. To change. And, what is more, sliding our neck into an easy yoke with Jesus us sounds more like an invitation to dance than to trudge forward under a burdensome, ever-crushing load. What if Jesus is approaching. Offering his hand, extending a question.

May I have this dance?

©2018 Jerry Lout

 

 

 

 

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Sing Oh Sing

“Good morning everyone. Let’s stand, shall we? There now, please open to. . .”

David Edward’s Welsh accent met the ear of Southerners like a tugboat whistle would a native Inlander. We took up our hymn books – Redemption Songs.

Easy to spot – nearly impossible in fact, to miss – the treasured little hardback, was drawn from clever book pouches fitted to the backside of sanctuary pews across the Tabernacle.

Hymns spanning centuries – their greater numbers sung by European worshippers rather than North American Yanks were enclosed in sturdy little, deep red hard-backs. They featured no musical notes, only hymn lyrics – some inspired this century, many earlier on – numbering near a thousand in all. Of this grand host of songs I had heard just a tiny fraction. Distinguished, endearing Professor Edwards continued.

“We want to lay aside the morning’s cares, and those of the evening to come. The Lord is here, meeting with us”, he stated with believable conviction. “Such a good and great and worthy Father.”

It was David Edwards himself who had introduced Redemption Songs to the Elim campus.

“His Spirit meets with us gathered now”, Edwards concluded. “Let’s worship him.”

The very first stanzas in a growing parade of lyrics – winsome and wise, deep and lofty – drew me in.

From O for a Thousand Tongues to O Worship the King, to Love Divine All Love Excelling. . .

Penned by past-slave-trader to fine-art composer, their enduring melodies rallied anew. The humble artists proved themselves masters of prose. And cadence. And holiness. Havergal, Spafford and Newton, Cowper, Scriven and Wesley – opening to us their seasoned wines.

Stepping afterwards from the hillside chapel in the modest New York hamlet, I sensed an inner beckoning. An invitation to drink deeply, richly, joyfully. From sacred, deeper-than-deep fountains of ancient truth. Set to music.

I somehow, in the moment, had the presence of mind to respond to the welcome, and not look back.

If a person had no access to the Bible throughout all his lifetime – but owned the collection of Charles Wesley’s Hymns alone, he would have all that is needed for salvation’s offer, the way of living fully in Christ and the eternal hope of heaven.    – Geoffrey Hawksley, Missionary. British Assembly of God

©2018 Jerry Lout