When Hard Times are Good: The Crucible for Ministry

March 24, 2022 Kevin Abbott

Crucible: A Place or set of circumstances where people or things are subjected

to forces that test them and often make them change.[1]

Ruth Haley Barton

God, in His sovereign plan, often allows the leader to face crucibles in their journey as a way of helping them overcome their weaknesses as well as find Him afresh.

A leader can respond to these crucibles in one of three ways:

The first response is that it can harden the leader’s heart and push them away from God. In turn, they will fail to experience the deep work and change that God intended.
The second and most desirous response is that the leader slows down, leans in to hear God, and allows Him to do a deep work in their soul, no matter how long it may take.
The third response is like the second but with a spirit of impatience. By rushing the process, we miss much of the growth that God intended.

The tendency of most leaders is to hurry the process of learning by saying, “Hurry up and teach me so I can get on with ministry.” Ruth Haley Barton put it this way, “In the rush of normal life, we often blow right past the place where God is creating a stir to get our attention.”[2]

The Value of the Crucible

Many leaders have the faulty assumption that the fewer problems you experience in ministry and life or the quicker you are at getting past them, the better you are as a leader. The hope for many is that they never have to face crucibles, opting instead for a proactive kind of life learning, thinking they can beat the system so to speak. I love the warning that Richard Rohr gives leaders in his book Falling Upward:

Any attempt to engineer or plan your own enlightenment is doomed to failure because it will be ego driven. You will see only what you have already decided to look for, and you cannot see what you are not ready or told to look for. So, failure and humiliation force you to look where you never would otherwise.[3]

The problem most leaders have in their hurried life and ministry is that they want the glory of God—the change in character and the fruits—without the pain. As my friend Dan Nold says, “But in reality, that's the order. The crucible leads to change. Pain leads to glory, and...death leads to life.”

How sad would it be to waste the crucible moments of our journey because we were too busy to slow down and let God do His deep work within our souls! It should haunt the soul of a leader to get through one of these precious, God-given moments and to not have gotten all that He wanted them to get from it.

Purpose of the Crucible

The Bible is full of leaders who have been through the crucibles. In fact, it's very unusual to come across one that hasn’t.

Moses murdered a man at 40 and tended sheep in the desert until 80. Then, God called him to lead Israel out of Egypt to the promised land.

David hid in the caves of a barren wasteland running from a deranged king for nearly 10 years before he became King.
Joseph was thrown into a hole, sold to slave traders, and spent 13 years as a slave before he became the Pharaoh's right-hand man.
Job lost everything—I mean everything—before he was doubly blessed by God.
Paul spent years isolated with God in the desert before going on his first missionary journey.
Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness praying, fasting, and warding off the Devil before He began his 3 years of earthly ministry.

Each of these leaders would tell you that the crucibles God allowed them to journey through proved crucial to their future success as a Kingdom leader. God used these moments to prune their heart, soul, and character as a leader. Each of them would likely say that they were finally able to hear God’s voice and direction for their lives in a way that they had never before experienced.

“One of the most soul strengthening things that can happen to a leader in the crucible of ministry is to know that God is at work, to hear a voice speaking that is not our own.”[4]

Leaders need this clarity, and that clarity only shows up when we begin “to hear a voice speaking that is not our own.”

Context of the Crucible

Often times hearing God requires pain and exile

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11 is so much more than just your typical fluffy feel-good Christian coffee mug and t-shirt verse. It is perhaps the best picture in all of Scripture of the crucible and its divine purpose. Context, context, context.

Go back to the beginning of chapter 29. Most of Israel had been taken into captivity in Babylon just a few months prior. Jeremiah and a few of the Israelites were left behind in Jerusalem amongst the rubble. The Israelites in captivity found themselves over 600 miles from home in bondage to a pagan nation. Apparently, they had written a letter to the prophet Jeremiah imploring him to go to God on their behalf. To ask God to rescue them from the hands of their oppressors and bring them back to the homeland. Sounds like a reasonable request, right?

What we have in Jeremiah 29:4-23, at the heart of which we find our famous verse, is God’s answer. The prophet sent God's promises in a letter back to his exiled brothers and sisters in Babylon. What would one expect to be God’s answer to his covenant people in their time of desperate need? Maybe something like, “Sure, I will send someone to rescue you! I would hate to see you suffer in slavery to that evil, god-forsaken nation.”

But no, that is not even close to what God told Jeremiah to write. God’s answer? Go ahead, and get comfortable right where I put you. Plan to stay awhile. Build houses, get a career, get married, have kids, and even grandkids. If that wasn’t bad enough, God instructed them to pray for the leadership and people of the pagan city of Babylon. Pray that God would bless them as well! In fact, get used to Babylon, you’re going to be there for 70 years! Wow, that's not quite the response from God that Jeremiah or the exiles probably expected.

And it's in this context that we find our beloved Jeremiah 29:11. Why did they need to sit in the pain and exile for this time? Because “'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”

Appreciating the Crucible

The purpose for the exile? It’s found in verse 12,

"Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. (Then) you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Then) I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.”

There it is—the ultimate purpose of every crucible. God knew that the only way his people would finally seek him with all their heart, the only way they would finally lean in and listen, the only way they would truly know the co-loving relationship of the Trinity was through seventy years of exile, bondage, and pain. Why?

Because this is God's good and loving plan for you, a plan to not harm you but to bless you, a plan for you to experience His love like it was always meant to be.

Bottom line… Cherish the crucibles. God wants to grow you and He really does love you enough to allow you to experience them for the sole purpose of deepening your experience of His love.

Kevin Abbott is the Associate Director/Chief of Staff here at the UBA. He has been a pastor and leader in churches throughout Texas for the past 25 years. His heart and passion is to encourage, care for and coach pastors and church leaders. He is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and currently is working on a DMIN in Lifelong Leader Development at Fuller Seminary. He is the husband to his wife Mindy and a proud father of three beautiful children (Callie, Abigail & Joshua).

Further reading:

Barton, Ruth Haley. Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry. Expanded edition. Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2018.

Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Jossey- Bass, 2011.

[1] Barton, Ruth Haley. Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. IVP, 2018. P. 16

[2] Barton, Ruth Haley. Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. IVP, 2018. P. 68

[3] Rohr, Richard. Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Jossey-Bass, 2011. P. 89

[4] Barton, Ruth Haley. Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. IVP, 2018. P. 69

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