Serving as missionaries to Korea my wife, Char and I experienced a terrible misunderstanding. Over a policy disagreement, we were rejected by both a segment of the Korean church we worked with and also the mission board who responded to their negative reporting. In retrospect, the experience, its lessons, and the personal and ministerial growth that occurred as a result demonstrate how God is able to teach us and bring good out of tearful crises. However, at the time, the crisis seemed overwhelming and was based on such unfair misperceptions and misunderstandings!

God sometimes brings special intense situations of pressure in human circumstances that He uses to test and teach dependence. A crisis is a time of increased pressure. God is looking for our willful intent to move deeper into His heart in the early stages of a crisis so that He may carry us through it. The end result is a stronger, more influential Christian with a deeper experience of God and the spiritual authority that accompanies it.

Experience with fasting and running marathons, has taught me that much of the perseverance needed to follow through in times of testing stems from making good, firm decisions ahead of time and then putting our “decider” in neutral and our “doer” on automatic pilot. The inconvenience of fasting can be endured if you don’t have to remake the decision not to eat every day or hour. The fatigue of the marathon race can be endured if every mile you don’t have to remake the decision that you are going to run to the end. Experience helps, but following through on the original decision is a major factor.

Even Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” This seems to suggest that He decided—perhaps we could even say determined that he would endure the cross and then followed through, having set Himself to do it. I recall how I felt after reading Luke 9 & 10. The impression of what Jesus must have felt—that “betrayal is hard to endure”—was very deep. The translation I was reading then said that Jesus, after having made His decision, “ moved steadily onward towards Jerusalem with an iron will” (Luke 9:51 Living Bible, emphasis mine). Jesus, our Example, demonstrated how to react to crises with righteous determination, though the horrible death He endured also demonstrated His divinity. In our case, the pressure we endure is necessary to make us more like Him. Our reactions to suffering show a watching world that Christ is within. Crises provide the increased pressure that makes such resolve and determination possible. They bring out the best or worst in us.

Yet, there is another element. Jesus “humbled himself and became obedient to death” (Phil.2:8). How much refinement in learning obedience was still necessary in Jesus at that time is not known, but in our case, refinement is certainly a possible additional result of crises. I used to have to be right. I was too contentious and argumentative. More often than was prudent, I liked to let people know how correct I was. As I look back now on the old me, I realize that with such a tough shell and hard heart, I needed the crisis God allowed in Korea.

Pressure on the individual experiencing a crisis is a necessary preparation that creates willingness, even eagerness, to change. Because God is not content to leave us as we are in our undeveloped or underdeveloped state, He allows crises so we can grow. When things continue as they are, we have no motive to change. We usually like to stay with the comfortable pattern. In “change theory,” scholars refer to creating “dissonance” which causes people to become discontent with the status quo and therefore more willing to adopt an innovation. God, the greatest change agent, also seems to be willing to create some personal dissonance so that we are more willing to change. A crisis is necessary because we need it.

In early spring of 1979, not yet a year into our second term in Korea, I attended an Asian area gathering for missionaries and national leaders of our denomination held in Hong Kong. I was there along with the one from Korea whose policy for growth of the church was so different from mine. When it became apparent that the divisions that impaired our growth in Korea were not only painful to us but also painfully obvious to others, I began praying even more seriously about these problems.

Just days later, our denominational missions leader visited us in Korea and attended a pastors meeting. They saw more disunity. Afterwards, Char and I took them the two-hour drive by car to Seoul where they were to catch their plane for the US. Upon arrival in Seoul and just before we got out of the car, Char and I shared the story of a vision that a Mary Ann, a pastor’s wife in the US, had seen of us. That had been about a year earlier while we were in the US on furlough. In the vision, Mary Ann saw a long line of Asians marching out of bondage into freedom as we led them. In our minds, the fact that we were at the head of the line in the vision meant that our ministries were going to be effective and fruitful among Asians, and that as a result of our leadership, people were indeed going to be led into new things spiritually. The vision had been an encouragement to us for almost a year by the time we shared it in the car that spring day in 1979. We were glad God was giving us a place in such a victory march. 

What the mission leader’s wife heard, however, was that we were grasping for position, prestige, and power at the head of the line. By that time in our ministries in Korea, we had already shed enough tears for the freedom of the church that we understood our position was a responsibility before the Lord rather than something to be grasped. To be so severely misunderstood and criticized by the ones who had sent us to Korea was a shocking disappointment. I mention it here because this is the kind of pressure a crisis places on the servant of God. Fair or unfair is another question. My point is that the pressure on the individual can produce an intense desire toward God and a desperation that creates willingness, even eagerness, to change.

The crisis is not the issue; it only prepares us. The issue is that we need to change, and God uses a crisis to make us willing. Since God knows how much we can take and our potential for development, the intensity of the crisis is the depth of the compliment God is paying us. On the other hand, God also knows how thick our skulls, how dim our spirits, how dull our minds, how prideful and resistant to His teachings each of us is. So He knows just how much pressure we need in order to finally become willing to change.

How we react to a crisis is the key—in fact, our reaction is the issue. How we react in the crisis is more important in God’s development process than solving the crisis. You and I both know of people who have experienced crises and learned nothing and experienced no personal improvement. None of us likes to pay for something and then not enjoy any benefits. With crises, to pay or not to pay is not the question—we will pay. Whether we receive the benefit of improved character is the question. If we react correctly—with a humble and teachable spirit—the promise of Scripture is great growth: “Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up” (James 4:10). “These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (I Peter 1:7).

None of us likes crises. None of us likes to suffer physically, spiritually, emotionally, or mentally. Our egos don’t like to suffer either. Yet the Master metallurgist knows the tempering process perfectly. He knows the strength of the steel He is testing. He knows the right temperature for the fire, the right temperature for the coolant, and the best timing to make your metal stronger. Some of us require hot fires and tremendous pressures in order to be willing to change, yield, and die. The crises will last only for a while. But the improvements can last the rest of our lives and into eternity. God is more concerned about our development than our comfort.

Copyright Ron Meyers

Ron Meyers has served as the Professor of Missions and Coordinator of the Master of Arts in Missions programs in the School of Theology and Missions at Oral Roberts University.   He is an engaging and knowledgeable speaker who is available for book signings.  For more information visit www.christianhabits.com