hungering – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

July 6, 2023July 5, 2023

In Pursuit

The engineer-scholar approached research like an Alaskan sled driver tackling the Iditarod. Body and soul, his mind’s eye trained on a distant finish line. Tenacious all the way.

Once he defined his project, goals were set, objectives clarified, laboratory testing undertaken. The box-checking tasks were diverse and many, yet specific. The scholar took care not to diminish the value of each component. Pressing forward, Dr. Zhang* ‘leaned in’ day after day. His primary aim – to find a way of enhancing flow, of transporting liquids through pipelines by speedier, more efficient means.

As with Mr. Zhang, the Christ-follower’s journey moving forward calls for engaging his “want-to”. Simply ‘wanting to want to’ qualifies as the starting point for many. They begin employing efforts that any thoughtful person might bring to the table. As practices, i. e. holy habits, get embraced and take root along the way, the faith walk assumes more and more uplifting elements. A garment of praise displaces a spirit of heaviness. To his delight, the disciple discovers his own heart-driven quest – to know and to live and to love like God.

Hungering for God grows in the person who wants to want to.

The petroleum engineer embraces a vision that, if realized, may (who knows?) revolutionize a whole industry. But his aim is simply to see a meaningful difference come about. The point all along is in bringing positive change.

The Christian, viewing himself rightly as a follower and apprentice to the Lord Jesus, is poised to learn. Positive change is in the air. The starting point upon rising day by day is to posture himself to hear from Jesus. Doing so, he discovers Jesus afresh as the amazing savior and brilliant person he is – the one who, more than any other person, knows best just how to live the human life. The new apprentice realizes he has been forever changed. . . yet not enough. Like a child’s kite on a breezy day, the currents beckon to the beyond. Lifting higher and further into God’s spacious goodness.

Knowing (really getting to know) God’s Son brings with it transformative workings. Such knowing gives rise to a lifetime of thoughtful, heart-hungering pursuit.

Whether an engineer, a homemaker, a CNA, a student – simply any and every person whose aim is growth – a common thread is witnessed. Effective training and mentoring are hallmarks of change. And how much so, for the happy members of the family – those self-aware and Christ-aware “unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe”*

These are those who take up a lifestyle patterned closely after their teacher and redeemer friend – their ever-living mentor.

February 16, 2023February 17, 2023

Lifeline

Hungering?

Not hungering for knowledge of the brainy kind. Not hungering after an experience. Not even hungering after spiritual growth, whatever we might assume that is.

One can stoke an appetite of yearning for the finest of things. But if the very finest of things is missing or drops to even second place on our craving list, we come up short. Like the man who climbs his ladder of success only to discover the ladder has been leaning against the wrong wall.

The relentless hungering after a lesser thing, i.e. anything other than our Lord’s thing, carries the person to one of at least two places.

(A) The place of pride (I am one of those few select souls following hard after the ‘right path’. . . so take note!). Comparing his actions and behaviors to others, he views his spiritual maturity as deeper, more advanced. To this person good performing is everything.

(B) The place of despondence (Why did I ever buy into the notion that satisfaction and contentment were in reach, since all my efforts following this Christian trail have failed at both).

Any time we set out on our own to achieve a thing that can only be obtained by God and his means, we come up short. Disappointed. Frustrated. Disillusioned. Not fun places to be.

Let us picture this. A young lady grows up in a religious tradition where she routinely hears something like, “You must please God every day or you might not make it to heaven”. Or, “Here is a list of things in the Bible you had better be working on if you want to be a real worth-your-salt Christian.” Along the way the girl reads that Jesus calls disciples to follow him.

“I do want to be acceptable to God when I die”, she muses. “I want to be a good Christian. I will do my best to obey God and follow Jesus.”

In time this sincere soul simply grows weary in the trying. Trying to measure up. Day after day, trying and trying. Eventually throwing in the towel.

In the one kept afloat by human pride the bubble bursts. For the other, exhausted and spent in the tryings, all-out collapse awaits.

But then at the last moment, good news!

A lifeline floats our way straight off a New Testament page. Our weary soul rallies at the alluring words from the pen of a seasoned tentmaker,

But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.*

November 17, 2018

A Hungering

Jesus of Nazareth invited two apprentices to walk and work with him. Then came a third. . . then another and another. Since those early days, the increase of his trainees-in-Christlikeness has carried forward until their number now spans the globe.

Jesus knew well the need of passing along insights and wisdom. But also, of modelling his rare kind of power – the power of love – brought here to earth by him from another world. He did this kind of thing at every step, this modelling and training.

As for insights and wisdom, what this master-trainer brought into view went deeper. It went past the understanding and good sense already found among people through centuries of human experience. Further, the compassion he showed left other forms of human caring shallow by comparison.

Many historians measure this Middle-eastern figure, whose name is more commonly spoken than any other in history, as the most gifted, the most brilliant human ever to live. Yet he didn’t hold his understanding to himself, wasn’t stingy with his gems. Rather, Jesus offered up to any who would take him seriously, his own qualities – wisdom and truth – which any sensible person might eagerly receive.

So, this carpenter-turned-rabbi – as a feature of his mission – recruited to himself a company of students, of learners who might grow to live as he lived. Might even, to a surprising measure, become as he was. Many of Jesus’ apprentices arrived on the scene from ordinary backgrounds. Some were well-educated, others not, some well to do, others not so much.

They would travel with him in climates both calm or stormy. They tasted samplings of popularity and favor and weathered seasons of scorn and rejection.

These disciple-apprentices dined in community. They wrapped up countless action-filled days reflecting together before an open flame at a makeshift fire pit, often at places a good way from their homes. Their minds and hearts took in what they were able of their coach’s actions and sayings. Time in each another’s presence stretched them. They quibbled. They fussed. They were in training.

When one or two of the group asked him for advice on how to pray, Jesus answered in sensible language, “Pray this way. . .”

He also modeled praying. His apprenticing meant that he would (in a manner unlike others of his day) shift readily into a conversation with the invisible God whom he knew to be among them. This would occur easily, naturally when a time or circumstance called for it, which tended to be often.

When their food supply got small, Jesus talked to them about carefree living, then, on occasion would completely surprise them, bringing forth a meal. Such actions would leave them in wonder and deeply curious as to this man’s other-worldly nature.

Never one who seemed rushed or fidgety, he chuckled easily with his apprentice-friends. And, like any skillful mentor, he corrected them without timidity, apology or fanfare.

On a given day Jesus’ corrective counsel might be directed to one or two of the apprentices or he may address a thing meant for the wider community. Regardless, corrective action was each time offered in the interest of serving both his highest good and theirs. The trainees grew to own this.

The longer they walked with him, the less they wished for the former life, their old ways of being. It began to feel as though the rabbi was growing them, little by little, to become very much like himself. This seemed a good thing. They hungered for more.