There is an odd legacy in the Christian tradition. The legacy is the way guilt, shame, fear and anxiety end up fueling life and ministry. The examples are legion:

  • A monk running out to the desert to avoid the shame of trying to seduce a woman away from her fiancé.

  • A missionary trying to secure God’s favor by doing radical work for God.

  • A preacher angrily railing at his audience because he is insecure, unstable and worried that God won’t accept him.

The word “unstable” is an important one here.

Rather than fueling the Christian life and ministry from grace through faith — a stability resting on gratitude in the work of God — we can easily use our instability as a way to animate our faith.

In this post I am thinking, in particular, about those in ministry whose ministry is derailed not primarily for what we think of as “moral” issues (although they are still no doubt moral), but for an inability to minister or lead like Jesus. This can look a lot of different ways, from what we often think of as toxic to the less obvious but equally destructive inability to relate in love.

One of the reasons we see so many people in ministry (even those who seem to have a profoundly fruitful ministry), who turn out to not be at all what they seem (to put it generously), is that they are often animating their ministry apart from the way of Jesus. We need to recognize that it is not only possible, but is the way of humankind; being “merely human” is to seek to use the flesh to fuel our ministries and even grapple with our sin (see Gal. 3:1-3).

But sin “defeated” with the flesh will only beget more sin (it won’t be a defeat at all but a rerouting our sin through other channels).

In every case I know of, the people whose sin derailed their ministry started with a lot of excitement, passion and deep desire to do good for God. But they were never able to see how much of this was a very immature and self-funded activity.

What often really hurts these folks is that instead of being given room to grow, they are thrust into ministry beyond their maturity. In this place, the average Christian begins to think, “I’ve got to make it happen.” The fantasy is that if I fake holiness long enough, it will be true of me.

Many lives, marriages, ministries, and families have gone to ruin over people being thrust into ministry beyond their maturity. Confronted with being seen as a spiritual leader while facing their own sinfulness, immaturity and brokenness, it often feels spiritual to just mimic what you imagine a mature Christian would do.

As time goes on, the false image of maturity is increasingly cut off from the hidden heart of the person. The deep currents of the soul that animate their lives are increasingly denied, deluding the person into believing those deep currents aren’t there. The more time passes, the greater the risk of stopping, looking and naming the truth. It feels like too much to risk until it all comes crashing down. Oddly, when it does, it is often met with a sense of relief. The pressure they lived under was unnecessary, but they had convinced themselves it was the only way to be faithful.

Confronted with the demands of ministry and the desire to be faithful, many Christians look to the same mechanisms of action as they would with a new diet or a new regimen at the gym. They turn to self-deception, self-shaming and natural habit formation to try to generate faithfulness.

Unsurprisingly, this does not cultivate a character in love and for love.

Too often, what passes as spiritual formation is simply ways of managing one’s guilt or shame, or ways of deceiving oneself to try to construct a life seen as faithful. As John Coe and I share in our book, When God Seems Distant, there is a deeper way. In fact, there is only one way, but that way will require you to walk with God in the desert.

As the author of Hebrews reminds us, “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb. 3:13). It is never not today, and today is the day to stop, look in the mirror of the Word, and refuse to turn around and forget what you look like (Jas. 1:23-24).

It is not enough to just see something you want to be like and mimic it. The Christian life is not just getting the right example and then acting it out. We can do this in the flesh rather than the Spirit (Gal. 3:1-3). We can do this in our own power rather than knowing God’s power in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:9-10).

The Lord asks for more, but not in a way that depletes us, but in such a way that fills us to overflowing, even though, counter-intuitively, it can feel like being depleted (this is what makes the desert or desertion so disorienting). One reason for this is that the Lord calls us to know more and more deeply how much we have been forgiven so that we can overflow in love (see, for instance Luke 7:47). Too often we see an ideal we can’t achieve and despair, rather than turn to the Lord who is the fountain of life, in whom, if we abide, we will bear the fruit of his life in our lives.

Seek the Lord. Rest in him. Grasp him and trust him in every situation of your life. But also, refuse to project a fantasy about who you are; refuse to project your spiritual avatar in prayer instead of coming to the Lord in the truth.

If you are in ministry leadership in some way, find people to confess to, wrestle with and open your heart to. Find a context where you can share your anxieties, worries and frustrations. But do all of this as a way to present your bodies to the Lord (Rom 12:1). Offer yourself to God by giving yourself to his people and entrusting yourself to their care and love.

This post and more can be found on Kyle Strobel’s Substack.