Tag: trainer

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‘Aspiring’

Jesus regularly forms his followers, those whose hearts are poised to grow into his likeness. He just waits on us to make a move. The apprentice grows more like his master by observing and doing the things his master (trainer/mentor) does.

Jesus modeled the practice of praying, for instance. Do you, like me, ever wonder why so many preachers, teachers and scholars write and speak on the subject of prayer? Well, Jesus started it.

Jesus not only taught on prayer. He prayed. A lot.

A. W. Tozer notes that Jesus prayed early in the morning and, at times, throughout all the night. That he prayed both before and after the great events of his life, and prayed “when life was unusually busy”.

Wherever you and I happen to be just now on our discipleship journey, we too may come to him as his early ragamuffin followers did those centuries ago. Bringing before him our earnest appeal about talking with God,

“Lord, teach us to pray.”

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time* If we should search for a single line to sum up a fundamental disposition present in a New Testament disciple, we might begin with that phrase.

It was he who spoke of us walking alongside him, donning an ‘easy yoke’.  It is Jesus who stirs the imagination, offering a word picture of fruit-producing branches. Each branch, each Christ-follower, draws a plentiful supply of life straight from him – the vine. One day at a time. . one moment at a time.

Through his own frequent rhythms of being present to his Father in prayer Jesus modeled the practice for any and every one signing on as his apprentice. The Lord Jesus, more than any other human, understood prayer’s non-negotiable nature. Endurance and flourishing (two longed-for aims of any meaningful life) find their fountain in direct union with God alone. Nothing else quite works.

I am afraid I have sometimes lacked the ‘sanctified ambition’ witnessed now and then in his early disciples when their hunger surpassed their timidity. “Lord, teach us to pray”.

Those of us who count ourselves as apprentices or apprentice wannabes can thank God every day that their appeal was made. “Teach us to pray” may rank as the most worthwhile request ever voiced by any person anywhere.

Apprentices learn by copying what they see in their teacher.

(c)2023 Jerry Lout

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Observing

Observe

Watching my Suzuki dirt bike hoisted onto a wobbling, home-built canoe at the edge of a flooded river, gave me pause. Did I make a smart move?

My unsettled mind calmed the next few minutes as the two tribal men skillfully executed their self-assigned duties. I looked on in growing admiration.

These fellas know a thing or two about rivers. And of cargo management for home-built canoes.

The reflection in my head took form after I witnessed a donkey traversing those waters under the young men’s management, emerging at the opposite shore, her hee-haw still intact.

In a similar way I’ve found it often only takes a little observing to appreciate praiseworthy qualities in people – their dispositions, skill sets, personalities, their manner.

In this respect, Jesus has become my favorite subject in people-watching.

Indeed, he himself – this son of a blue-collar worker growing up in an unexceptional middle-eastern village – honed his own set of observing skills. Sharpening them as keenly as he did the carpentry tool finding its home in his saw-dust-sprinkled grip.

Engage

“Here, Yeshua, see how we mark the place just this side of the knot hole? This is where we cut the plank. Now, watch closely where I position the saw. . .” Papa Joseph patiently tutored the youngster, modelling for him the carpentry craft.

To excel at a thing – to move little by little into expertise – any person ever trained in a skill knows the drill.

  • Watch (observe) the trainer, listening, paying attention as they do their work
  • Imitate the manner and movements of the mentor while he looks on, coaches, corrects
  • Do the work – produce ‘fruit’ reflecting the quality of the master’s own workmanship and of his character

Jesus did this. Jesus trained his friends while adopting for himself role of trainee. Remarkable, really. The writer of Hebrews offers a pithy insight about Jesus, “He learned.”

Paul the apostle followed suit, the Damascus-road convert boldly recruiting others to ‘board his gospel canoe’:

“Follow me as I follow Christ.”

Become

I want to become like Jesus.

Through the years the yearning has ebbed and flowed in my deep interior.

Not in me alone. The cry is common to Christ-followers all around. Common because nothing else slakes our thirst for meaning. A cry because, at the core, this is our design. We are made for it – for apprenticeship to Jesus. Made to be formed into a likeness very much resembling him. In  character. In life.

How does such a life-altering enterprise get underway?

My boyhood days growing up on a farm stirs a thought.

©2018 Jerry Lout