Part 1: Uncovering Your S.H.A.P.E. · Lesson 6
How God uses every chapter of your story to prepare you for ministry
God uses both positive and painful experiences to shape you for ministry. Nothing in your past is wasted. Every triumph and every wound is raw material in the hands of a God who redeems all things.
Erik Rees invites you to picture a long hallway. On the walls hang portraits — dozens of them, maybe hundreds. Each one captures a moment, a season, or a turning point from your life. Some portraits glow with warm light: a graduation day, the birth of a child, a moment of spiritual breakthrough. Others are painted in darker tones: a painful breakup, the loss of a loved one, a season of deep doubt or failure.
Most of us walk through this hallway and fixate on one wall or the other. We either dwell on our successes and forget our struggles, or we linger on our wounds and cannot see the good. But God wants you to see the entire hallway. He is the Artist who hung every portrait, and He intends to use all of them.
"The blacksmith uses both heat and hammer to shape iron into something useful. In the same way, God uses both the comfort and the crisis of your life to mold your character and direct your ministry."Inspired by Max Lucado
The blacksmith's forge is not a place of destruction. It is a place of formation. The fire is intense, the blows are heavy, but the result is something strong, shaped with intention. Your painful experiences are not evidence that God abandoned you. They are evidence that God is shaping you.
Every experience in your life falls into one of five broad categories. Within each category, you have both positive and painful experiences. God can use both kinds to equip you for ministry.
| Category | Positive Examples | Painful Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Personal | Overcoming an addiction, achieving a health goal, a milestone birthday | Illness, loss of a parent, divorce, financial crisis |
| Vocational | A promotion, a successful project, finding your dream job | Job loss, a toxic workplace, career disappointment |
| Relational | A deep friendship, a mentoring relationship, reconciliation | Betrayal, a difficult family dynamic, loneliness |
| Educational | Graduating with honors, a transformative class, learning a new skill | Academic failure, feeling unintelligent, a missed opportunity |
| Spiritual | Salvation, a powerful retreat, answered prayer | Spiritual dryness, unanswered prayer, church hurt |
Take a moment to look at that table honestly. Which cells resonate most with your own story? You do not need to share your answers with anyone right now. But you do need to be honest with yourself and with God.
Jana Alayra was a mother living an ordinary life when tragedy struck. Her young daughter died suddenly, and the grief was overwhelming. In the darkest chapter of her life, Jana could have retreated into bitterness and despair. Instead, she allowed God to redeem her pain. She began writing and performing music that ministered to families who were suffering. Her painful experience became the very thing that equipped her to comfort thousands of others walking through their own valleys of grief.
Erik Rees himself carries a story of childhood abuse. For years, the shame and brokenness of those experiences threatened to define him. But as he surrendered those wounds to God, he discovered that his pain gave him a unique capacity to connect with others who felt damaged, discarded, or beyond hope. He did not choose the abuse, but he chose to let God use it for good.
Throughout the book, Rees introduces people like Carrie, whose educational struggles taught her to advocate for struggling students; Paul, whose career setback drove him to start a nonprofit serving the unemployed; and Sandra, whose painful church experience led her to create a safe healing community for others wounded by religion. In each case, the pain was not the end of the story. It became the beginning of a new chapter of ministry.
Romans 8:28 does not say that all things are good. It says that God works for good in all things. Your painful experiences were not good, but God is good, and He is at work redeeming every chapter of your story for His purposes and your ultimate healing.
Paul's words to the Corinthians reveal a profound chain of grace: God comforts you, and then you become a channel of that same comfort to someone else. Your pain is never wasted when it is placed in God's hands. It becomes a bridge to someone who needs to know they are not alone.
Think about your life so far. Identify your top three positive experiences — the moments, achievements, or seasons that brought you the greatest joy, growth, or sense of accomplishment.
Now, with courage and honesty, identify your top three painful experiences — the moments of loss, failure, hurt, or struggle that shaped you in ways you did not choose.
Some people believe that their past disqualifies them from ministry. They carry shame from failures, wounds from betrayal, or scars from trauma, and they assume that only people with clean histories are fit to serve God. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Read the stories of the Bible and you will find a parade of imperfect people: Moses was a murderer, Rahab was a prostitute, David was an adulterer, Peter denied Christ, and Paul persecuted the church before his conversion. God did not disqualify them. He redeemed them and used their broken stories to accomplish His purposes.
Your past is not a prison. It is a classroom. God has been teaching you through every experience, and now He wants to use what you have learned to bless others. The question is not whether your past is too messy. The question is whether you are willing to place it in the hands of the One who makes all things new.
As you have walked through the Hallway of Life exercise, what surfaced for you? Are there experiences you find difficult to entrust to God? Are there positive experiences you have overlooked as potential ministry tools? Take these questions to God in prayer, and if you feel safe doing so, share them with a mentor, pastor, or trusted friend.