Tag: love

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Living Springs

What now should be done?

For quite a good while my Christian journey centered on “shoulds”.

I had believed on Christ  in my youth. I knew he had pardoned my sins through his sacrifice on a cross. When I turned to him, confessing my wrongs and trusting in him, I knew deep down that I was now his.  The Bible speaks of being born anew from above. That was me.

I also knew in those earliest years of grace that my life in Jesus was not meant to plateau. It was meant to keep changing. I was not meant to live my life any longer on my own. His salvation was to go deeper than just getting me into heaven after this life.

But there was a problem. I lacked some critical knowledge about how that might work.

Over time I came to think and live as though “pleasing God” was the central purpose of my being his child.  Some poor thinking took form, ironically, through things I often heard in church. My understanding of the gospel – God’s good news for all people – had gradually changed to something called  “performance-living”.

I was no longer fully living my faith from the inside out. Rather, becoming Jesus-like seemed to call for taking on the next God-pleasing task assigned me. Such tasks, I was reminded, were what I “should do” if I were indeed a true Christian.

It’s worth noting that none of the Christian performances I undertook were bad. Not at all. They were good, sometimes noble, acts of service.

Like many Christians, as I later realized, many of my “wants” were in the right place. Discovering this brought a measure of comfort. After all, I hungered to please God and longed to be a truly “good Christian”.  One thing that seemed lacking now was joy, the happy measure of joy I had tasted in those earlier God-companioned days.

And too, the sweet empowering love of earlier days began to wane. My good Savior’s springs of abundant living were being traded for an overburdening list of shoulds.

Only later would I recover the way of living Jesus had in mind for his disciples all along. More of a fruit-bearing kind of living. While not all things going forward would prove fun or easy, my way would become characterized more as a joyous, teamed-up partnership with him.

In the company of fellow disciples-in-training, I could move ahead under his accepting, empowering Spirit. The season was to become a very special period of training for me – especially in discovering how eager Jesus was about all this. His label for it, “life in abundance. . . in the easy yoke”.

(c)2022 Jerry Lout

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Twin Companions

Training is key.

Entering into the “Jesus life” sets a person in motion (like a theater production) into something much larger than a single First Act.

Don’t misunderstand. Entering God’s kingdom through spiritual rebirth marks a profound start on the journey. For the gift of sins forgiven we contritely thank him from the deep of our being, offering a resounding, “Yes, Lord Jesus. You are mine. I am yours!”

Yet now the journey commences. The Second Act enters. Our larger story within his own begins to unfold.

Life in Jesus was never prescribed as a single transaction. It is not (in athletic language) a sprint. Our marathon life in him carries forward into and through all our days. Each day affecting change as we offer responses to him in love.

Going forward we no longer live life “alone” on our own. We journey together now, with Jesus and his ever-expanding family.

What does it mean when one speaks of his ‘with-God’ adventure toward and throughout eternity. As the scripture informs us, we’re “no longer our own.” We are “purchased with a price”.*

Twin companions mark us – Believing, Following.

We believe.

Into all the coming days of our earthly pilgrimage, we place our real-time goings and doings at his disposal. Believing means venturing forward, trusting God as best we know how.

We follow.

As with any kind of journey it helps to know in clear terms what we are aiming for – where we are headed. Where are we to find ourselves “at the end of the day”?

When he was a young man my dust-bowl-era father travelled by freight trains from Oklahoma to California. He did not ride just any train that came along. The trains he boarded – all of them – were west or northwest-bound. Why? Because California, his travel target, was that direction (“go west young man”).

A Jesus-follower makes one direction their aim. And here is the important thing, the truly big thing when traveling forward on the Jesus Route. Our aim is him. God brings us to him, Jesus. All centers on him. Christ is both our destination and our God-incarnate travel companion.

©2022 Jerry Lout

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A Kind Of Life

“He loves us too much to leave us as we are”

The phrase speaks of God’s heart poised our direction and of his mission to shape us over time to look more and more and more like his Son, Jesus. Why would an apprentice aim for anything less?

If we do, in fact, believe him – if we have entrusted to Jesus our eternal future, claiming him as master of all – what is our place in this relationship?

As we look to him, setting our attention his direction, we literally choose him over our selves. We see this as the only intelligent way to move forward in this life. To trust and respond to his invitation, embracing his instructions in living the good kind of life. The quality and manner of life he himself knew on earth as a human.

His life. That is what he offers, what he calls us to.

Astonishing yet soundly true.

An important truth enters here. As with my friend R.S. and the snail tale, we display through our actions the things that we are coming to believe.

Being forgiven our sins is wondrous and will remain so to every person choosing to follow Christ. Yet this tender provision (being forgiven of all our wrongs) is just the beginning of salvation’s walk.

Forgiveness is a doorway through which we pass to grow, to become like someone we have not fully yet become. Fully resembling Jesus is no small dream. Still, this is our aim. We know it in the deep place of our being. The New Testament brings the thing into very sharp focus.

“My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you*”

Look again at the wording, “in the pains of childbirth”.

Intense, right.

Nothing feels more challenging nor appealing to the apprentice than having his character transformed to well resemble that of the savior. Nothing.

My dinnertime visit to the college campus left my tastebuds stirred. May we now sense God’s open invitation, “Come. Taste. See.”

The richest of flavors await – joy, peace, righteousness, love (and more) – “until Christ is formed in you.”*

Next we may ask, “what is the process then? How does it happen, this ‘becoming like Jesus’? How does the walk unfold?”

The answer is simpler than we likely imagine. One step at a time.

Training is key.

©2022 Jerry Lout                                                                            *Galatians 4:19

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Hungering On

We humans are different from other creatures – birds and fish, beasts making up earth’s animal kingdom. As with animals, humans do of course get hungry. We grow thirsty. We are fueled with a drive to reproduce.

And yet.

We stand much apart from the families of cows and of dogs and of giraffes.

Humans have souls. Another way of putting it is we are souls. Among the most ancient writings found in what is called “wisdom literature” – we are offered a remarkable idea. Human beings are created as “image bearers” of God.

This is a big thought. That we share important qualities found inside the nature of God himself. Though we certainly are not God, nor could we ever become God.

Ancient Bible texts make the bold claim, “So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27 NLT).

For some of our readers, such an idea as this may come as a new thought. Let us look a little closer.

Assume that we are made by God for relationship with him. If so, such a condition might give rise to a certain nagging hunger within us. Such a hunger does exist. It is a kind of hunger straining within every culture and among every generation. We grapple with the yearning again and again. We are hungry creatures indeed.

For me, my hunger for God went like this.

In my most quiet and private and honest moments I sensed a “knowing” – an awareness that something was missing.

“What if the something is God” I wondered, “my designer, my maker, a someone who keeps me going?”

Opening the ancient texts (the Bible) my questions continued. . .

“What if God is the one being in all the cosmos who knows me through and through? “And suppose, furthermore, that he is perfectly wise and is the full embodiment of what we feebly call love.

“What if he has fashioned me so that he and I – along with others – may actually enter a living relationship together. Growing ever richer in peace and joy (inseparable companions of love), continuing on and on forever?”

This was, I realized, what the Bible was telling me.

My appetite grew.

(c)2022 Jerry Lout

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Fifty ~ Golden

Make your fiftieth anniversary memorable.

We needed little help meeting that assignment. Our terrific B&B of choice lacked sufficient heating reserves to counter the bitter cold pounding its harsh winds against our room’s exterior wall.

The host responded promptly to our Midnight SOS, and transferred us to a cozier room. A while later the breakfast table found us  – if a bit bleary-eyed – happily at our post.

With the aid of Facebook I succeeded surprising my bride with a little ballad I’d earlier composed. The lyrics here offer an unabridged version. Honoring my Forever-love, Ann Barnes Lout. . . I understand better now why they call it Golden. 

                                                                              ~December 30, 1967~

                                                                       I saw you then I see you now

I see you now, your movements slower

See you now, a bit more seasoned

And we smile to one another

As we chuckle at the reason. . . you were younger then, a little younger then

 

You look my way and there’s a senior

A little shuffle in his movements

You see his hair has gotten thinner

And you doubt there’ll be improvements. . . I was younger then, a little younger then

 

I saw you in your bridal garment

Saw you taking steps toward me

Couldn’t keep my eyes from watchin

You’re the only one I could see

 

And we met there at the altar and we pledged our lives together

our affection our devotion, all the way until forever

Our love was brand new then, brand new then

 

I saw you when our love first flowered

In those days that we ran faster

Laughing, runnin ‘long beside me

Chasing dreams we dreamed to master

We were children then, a lot like children then

 

I see us move toward a sunrise’

where an east horizon beckons’

See us trek across an ocean

where we hope to find a welcome

 

And the years they go on movin

with our numbers yet increasin’

as our family keeps a growin’

into yet another season

Seasoned now, yes we’re seasoned now

 

I see you radiant and lovely

More attractive now than ever

See you sharing gems of counsel,

younger women come to treasure

 

You look my way and there’s a senior,

a little shuffle in his movement

You see his hair has gotten thinner

and you doubt there’ll be improvement

 

I see you out there in the garden

See you touch a pretty flower

And I ponder how this woman

grows more lovely by the hour

 

And we met there at the altar and we pledged our lives together

our affection and devotion, all the way until forever

We would hold to one other, our devotion not forsaking

As we sealed our marriage union in these vows that we were making

    

I saw you then, I see you now

I loved you then, I love you now . . . I love you now

 

©2018 Jerry Lout  ‘I Saw you then, I See you now’   http://bit.ly/2DklGQJ

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Arrangement

My bride-to-be nearly drowned. She was young at the time, just hours old.

“Mr and Mrs. Barnes, the risks are high. To our knowledge no baby has made it through long-term. But the surgery is the only chance your little girl has.”

Earl and Mary had little time to think it over. A surgical team gathered and a T. E. Fistula repair was scheduled. The life of Alice Ann Barnes – her full body weight shy of five pounds – hung in the balance.

T.E. stood for Tracheosophageol. Sadly, the baby’s esophagus and trachea were defective at birth. Designed to transport her mother’s milk into her stomach, Ann’s esophagus mingled with her air-tube. Thus, any nutrition-rich fluids were sent to her lungs, not her stomach. In 1949 the field of medicine had its limits. Without corrective surgery, death by drowning or malnutrition would likely result.

Anesthetics were administered, their effects carefully watched. The surgeon’s knife found entrance into little Ann’s back. The procedure was underway.

Hours passed as anxious parents waited.

“Her vitals are steady.” Intensive care nurses – hours into post-op – kept a close watch on little Ann. Some likely prayed.

December, 1967. The former pediatrics patient – poised, lovely in her white gown – moved along the church sanctuary’s center aisle and to her waiting groom.

***

Our courtship, Ann’s and mine, had largely played out by long distance – spanning twelve hundred miles and two-and-a-half years. First by old-fashioned letters. Then with my Oklahoma-to-Montana phone calls.

The marriage wasn’t arranged by third-party players, but neither did we magically fall in love. We grew toward one another through the modest media of stationery paper and ballpoint ink, radial-dial phones with long-distance lines transporting two distinctly different accents – one from just south of Canada, the other a stone’s throw from Texas.

We had survived, each of us, our childhood crises of health. To one day embark, united, on a journey unlike any we could have dreamed.

An arranged marriage, one might say. By providence.

©2018 Jerry Lout

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Tents and Braces

tent meeting

 

In the Summer of 1949 sounds of homespun music, clapping hands and shouts of Amen ascended into the night at the north end of our town. A tent meeting was underway.

Things about tents fascinate me. My mother-in-law’s Danish mom – Grandma Sadie – called up memories as a settlers’ daughter. People from Denmark are evidently tough. The family spent their first winter in Montana living in a tent. Sadie’s beguiling reflection, “but it was a pretty mild winter” prompted a reflection of my own; ‘there can be no such thing as a mild winter in Montana – in a tent.’ 

In my adult years, while living in a tropical region, I bought a weathered six-man camping tent. A patch in the roof presumably marked the spot where the tusk of an elephant punctured the dwelling. The agitated mammal, I was told, raised the edge of the tent off the ground before moving on. 

In the ‘1940s and ‘50s open tents seated fifty to a hundred people and served the purposes of transient American preachers. Our visiting preacher, a lady minister oversaw with the aid of her husband, the tent’s inauguration on a vacant lot. A sawdust floor, wooden folding chairs, worn hymnals and a guitar or perhaps accordion completed the setting. The tent’s older visitors kept hand-held fans in easy reach. The preaching was Bible-centered, the messages vigorously delivered, the singing pulsing with strength.

Clyde and Thelma began attending the meetings with my sister, brother and me in tow. The music, preaching and testimonials seemed to usher in the Presence. The family never tired of experiencing the nearness of God in the company of other Jesus followers.

After a few weeks of conducting meetings the minister and her husband felt drawn to remain in our Northeastern Oklahoma town. They rented a vacant building. The Living Way Tabernacle became our church home.

After the polio experience my left leg was fitted with a knee to shoe brace. In my fifth year the brace came off for good. I was active without it and, lacking the benefit of therapy coaches in that era, my folks simply retired the brace. My limp became a little more pronounced from that time.

Support structures and supportive people. Good things to have in our lives. They are wonderfully provided (some would say from above) to help meet real needs, to make up the lack. It’s true that personal betterment can sometimes actually be hindered through over-support. That is, when a kind of assistance or a certain level of it is no longer appropriate.

Still, help is needed by all of us, through all of life. Different types of help and in differing amounts, for different seasons. Prematurely withdrawing support (as with braces) may damage or hinder progress along a road to wellness. Or, at least, better mobility.

I fell in love at age five. Her name was Opaline. She was beautiful. Even in braces. . Especially in braces.

©2015 Jerry Lout

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A Sure Hope

The mourners dispersed. The flower-dotted cemetery reverted to its earlier stillness. Thelma almost whispered her words.

What is it, Dovie? This Presence. It’s inside me. . in gentle waves. What is this goodness and this . .safety I feel?

Thelma’s question hung in the air. The shadow of a Canary Island Palm stretched across the lawn before them.

She was hungry for answers. This utter absence of her earlier grief astonished her. She hoped that the extraordinary calm would somehow remain. Yet she feared it may take flight. Could she carry on?

Dovie, will this peace, or the source of it, be near again if I (she corrected herself) when I need it?   

More questions. She had many and voiced most of them to Dovie over coming weeks.

Dovie was not a person of complicated notions or grand explanations. She waited. As she sensed a thought forming that brought clarity she pondered it, then offered a response. Otherwise she remained still. Prayerful.

The God that Dovie came to know and to love was real. And he was the giver of the Book. She knew that answers for questions that actually mattered were linked to the precious book. The pages of her own Bible showed uncommon signs of wear. It attested to truth. And to God’s presence.

“All I know, Thelma, is Jesus is real. It’s him. He’s the presence.”  Her words were simple, uncomplicated. Dovie responded in this way it seemed every time. Always highlighting Jesus.

How do I get him. . have him in my life, Dovie? Can I? I don’t want to be without the hope. I need Jesus. 

“Just say that to him, dear. Give him your heart. Surrender to him your whole life. Let him begin to take over. He’s listening. He doesn’t turn anybody away.”

Thelma yielded. As much as she knew how to. Shortly afterward Clyde kneeled, giving himself over to God’s care. Both of them were ready. They sensed it keenly. They needed God’s presence.

They were comforted too, that he understood the pain of releasing a son to the grave. Neither understood a lot of their salvation. They didn’t worry themselves over it. They just believed, and trusted.

Clyde and Thelma entered a new kind of life. Striding forward in faith, limping at times. In love. And hope.

Cross-Image-e1429587418410-300x169 (2)

 

 

 

©2015 Jerry Lout