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Misreading the Unbearable in Ministry

By Blaine Allen

A magician was working on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. The audience was different each week, so the magician did the same tricks over and over. There was only one problem: Each week, the captain’s parrot saw the shows and began to understand how the magician did the tricks. Once he understood, he started shouting in the middle of the show: "Look, it’s not the same hat." "Look, he’s hiding the flowers under the table." "Hey, why are all the cards the ace of spades?" The magician was furious but couldn’t do anything; it was, after all, the captain’s parrot.

One day, the ship sank. The magician found himself and the parrot clinging to a piece of driftwood in the middle of the ocean. They stared at each other with hate in their eyes, but neither uttered a word. This went on for one day . . . and then another . . . and another. After a week, the parrot finally said, "OK, I give up. Where’s the boat?"

Facing the pressures of ministry

Have you as a pastor, youth pastor, worship leader, missionary, teacher, administrator, or college director been asked to do something you don’t have the ability to do?

Like the magician, we can’t produce the boat. When our backs are against the wall, and our critics are saying, "Do it and do it now," we can’t do what only God can do. Who, then, would blame us for quitting?

On the Sinai Peninsula with a restless young nation of Jews, Moses knew he could not do what only God could do. Moses knew He could not produce the boat. He was experiencing pressure from God’s people. Moses let God know it was unbearable.

He asked God, "Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their forefathers? Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me" (Numbers 11:11–14*).

Notice the accusations. The term conceived—a common Hebrew expression for becoming pregnant—and the terms birth and nurse, were all judicial indictments—slams against God’s qualifications as a parent.

"Order in the court. God, please be seated. You are hereby charged with parental neglect." So who’s to take care of the children—the 2 to 3 million little urchins—now?

Usually it’s the Moses—the leader—who feels the responsibility to make it happen. And, as the real Moses found out, "the burden is too heavy." Simply too much. Result? He wanted out. He saw the situation as intolerable. But this was a misread.

Wearing God’s yoke

Do the following verses ever haunt you? "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28,29).

Our Lord’s yoke is easy. Our Lord’s burden is light.

Two possibilities exist if this is not so for you.

The yoke you wear is not His yoke. What you are doing is not what God wants you to do. It might be a good yoke. It might be a ministry yoke others wear, but it’s not the one for you. Maybe God did not mean for you to be on the mission field. Maybe you did misinterpret His will about the pastorate. Maybe it was not Him who called you to serve in a parachurch ministry. That’s why the yoke is hard. That’s why the load is intolerable. Maybe you wear the yoke by default, guilt, or pride. But a yoke you weren’t meant to wear is always an unbearable yoke. It’s OK to say, "I was wrong."

Second: The yoke is meant for you, but you are not learning from Christ how to wear it. Jesus said, "Learn from Me." He teaches us how to wear the yoke. He teaches us gentleness and humility of heart. In gentleness and humility we find rest for the soul. If you have determined you are wearing the right yoke and are pulling His load, but your hide’s rubbed raw and you’re bleeding, then maybe you have not experienced an increase in gentleness and heartfelt humility. Even the right yoke, worn in ignorance, is unbearable.

To learn from Him is to ask for ourselves what Paul prayed for the Ephesians and Colossians:

Paul said it this way in Philippians 4:13: "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." If you’re not feeling His strength, if things are such that the ministry is unbearable, either you’re wearing somebody else’s yoke or you’re wearing your own yoke, but you’re wearing it unlearned.

Experiencing God’s grace

Ministry defined as "what God wants me to do," and unbearable defined as "the ministry is too much for me" are incompatible concepts. This does not mean we do not become tired. This does not mean we don’t need to get away to regain perspective. This does not mean we can never leave a hard place. It does say, though, that God does not use unbearable situations to get you to say, "I quit."

The testimony of the Spirit, given to all believers, reveals God’s gift for prevailing in any situation that’s within His will:

Even the apostle Paul, at least in one stage of his ministry, told God, "Too much." Paul wrote, "There was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me" (2 Corinthians 12:7,8). Too much. Intolerable. Unbearable. "Hello, placement office? I would like to activate my file."

But Paul discovered that burdens read as unbearable are misreadings. He continued, "But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you’ " (2 Corinthians 12:9). Grace is not a general anesthetic, but the ability to graciously endure moment by moment. Felt needs—even felt ministry needs—allowed by the providence of God—are tolerable. To use the unbearable as a reason to quit is to deny the sufficiency of that grace. "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear" (1 Corinthians 10:13).

On July 28, 1962, the Mariner I space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida toward Venus. The objectives were the following: after 13 minutes into the flight, a booster engine would give acceleration up to 25,820 mph. After 44 minutes, 9,800 solar cells would unfold. After 80 days, a computer would calculate the final course corrections. After 100 days, the craft would circle Venus scanning the planet’s mysterious cloud shroud. The reality: 4 minutes after takeoff, Mariner I plunged into the Atlantic Ocean. An investigation revealed that when the instructions were fed into the computer, a minus sign was omitted—a minus sign that cost millions.¹

Do you feel frustrated? That’s understandable. We all do on occasion. But as a believer, neither you nor I can give in to frustration and say, "I quit." To do so is to feed data into our God’s-will-for-my-life computer that omits a critical sign. It’s a sign that could cost both you and me a bunch. This sign reverses everything. The intolerable becomes tolerable. The unlivable becomes livable. To say, "I’m finished," is to omit the sign—the ever-sufficient grace of God.

As long as God has communicated in His Word something that is able to sustain you, something to help you vanquish even that which torments, then the unbearable cannot be read as an automatic permission to leave. If we have been doing God’s will—wearing His yoke, actively learning from Him how to wear it—and still plan to quit because the burden is too much, then our felt needs have gotten out of hand. We’ve assumed the role of a surrogate, trying to make up for God, a role that no amount of grace will help us pull off. So let’s back off.

A plaque on the wall of a friend’s guesthouse says:

Grace. His grace. Grace that is now. Grace, the sign you do not want to omit. There has been no parental neglect.

Assuming that your obedience is up to speed, what you do not have right now you do not need. Because divine grace is forever sufficient, God is not using the unbearable to communicate to you, "Quit."

So be careful. Misunderstanding what God is doing happens to a lot of people, including us. When ministry is under siege and things are not always what they seem, the potential to misread God’s intent is probably never greater. To misread, as Moses did, may cause you to feel that things are unbearable and may lead you to jump.

You don’t want to do that. Your parachute just might not open.

Blaine Allen, D.Min., is senior pastor, Faith Baptist Church, Starkville, Mississippi, and author of Before You Quit: When Ministry Is Not What You Thought. Visit his Web site at: www.blaineallen.com.

*Scripture references are from the New International Version.

Endnote

1. Stephen Pile, "The Greatest Mathematical Error" in The Book of Heroic Failure (New York: Ballantine Publishing Group, 1986).