Tag: tools

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Owning It

I was about to discover that stepping from the shadows makes room for Christ’s light to catch its best chance at bringing forward his healing work.

Venturing out of the murky fog of Shadowland into sunlight’s inviting glow calls for one-day-at-a-time intentional living. Gritty, practical tools – in the grip of a handful of desperate, like-minded companions on the way – came to prove priceless in making headway.

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.

No truer maxim was ever cranked out when it came to my need for handles with which to navigate a viable pathway beyond broken sexuality. When a fellow is plagued by self-doubt and a sense of helplessness, he dare not (yet again) try to suck it up, marshal remnants of a fledgling willpower and soldier on.

Our evolving band of CPR brothers was supplying the flesh-and-blood community piece. And, the recovery program’s down-to-earth practices gave us those handles by which to prayerfully gain yardage.

On ‘Day One’ we went, each of us, to the mat to contend with a brutal concept. It was ours – within each of our own stories – to grapple with and embrace one harsh truth.

“We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.”*

Reaching up with “quivering hand”, edging my protective mask of secrecy downward the few centimeters necessary to ‘come clean’, I drew a slow breath. From behind my eyelids, I felt the gathering of a tear. Maybe two.

©2024 Jerry Lout                                                       *Celebrate Recovery. Step One.

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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.

 ©2023 Jerry Lout

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

 

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Near Resemblance

Whether changing flat tires in far off lands or fostering character qualities on the long journey of becoming Jesus-like, his followers make use of means.

What does means mean?

Means are things (practices/instruments) necessary to move toward a worthwhile goal.

The goal of getting changed into a kind of person resembling Christ is an aim unlike any other. What pursuit in all of life could bring greater challenges and deeper satisfactions when entered into with the whole heart?

Transformation to Christlikeness comes about (let’s be honest) through many days given to lackluster, routine plodding.

Doing the next good or right thing. If Jesus’ life is anything it is good and it is right (righteous). And it is routine plodding which often marks the pathway of the sincere person applying means to take on Jesus’ temperament, his humility and power.  Routine – not lifeless.

The whole apprentice-in-formation  journey can be equally characterized by surprise and adventure. Boring Jesus is not!

We never graduate from experimenting in the use of tools (means). This is the part where we discover a happy truth. The tools or the practices (stillness, worship, community, service etc) never are the point. Never. No more the point than if after undergoing a medical procedure the patient insists the surgeon hand over stethoscope, scalpel and sponge, “Just place them in my overnight bag at discharge time”. The point of everything was the patient’s wellness, not the collection of devices employed in the process, good and helpful as they surely were.

Though I was clueless at the time, the moment I decided as a high-school junior to opt for the Typing I course over the Spanish language track, a life-altering shift was set in motion. All this while any notion of tackling spiritual disciplines in hopes of becoming like Jesus could not have been further from my mind. Indeed “What are spiritual disciplines?”, I would have wondered. So, this small snapshot from my story serves only as an illustration.

As a high schooler, my means of afterward landing a job with a newspaper included the useful practice of learning to type. Those hours and hours of attentive practice yielded some rewarding fruit.  Firstly, gaining a set of marketable skills (typesetting). Secondly, landing a job in the glorious Wyoming Rockies. And finally, stumbling into a setting there where I would get introduced to a pretty young lady – my future bride. Surprise. Adventure.

We may then be wise on our spiritual journey to ponder and apply in humble faith some ancient, proven practices (means).

Practices which could bring each of us over time to (wonder-of-wonders) mirror a close resemblance to Jesus – Son of God.

2022 Jerry Lout

 

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