Editor’s note: This article includes an excerpt taken from Richard, Mike, and Daniel Blackaby, Experiencing God in Everyday Life: A Journey Toward Spiritual Maturity (Nashville: Lifeway Christian Resources, 2026), 13-14.
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Christian ministry is one of the greatest human endeavors. It can be immensely rewarding and God-glorifying, but it is often misunderstood. We tend to view ministry through the lens of worldly values and priorities. When we do, we inevitably measure and celebrate the wrong things, while overlooking what matters most.
We tend to long for mountaintop experiences, even though most of our life and ministry happens in the valley. In one of the most famous “mountaintop experiences” in the Bible, Jesus led three of his disciples to a mountaintop. He sent the other nine to minister in a nearby village in the valley (Matt. 17:1-21).
Valleys and Mountaintops…
Peter, James, and John had the breathtaking opportunity to listen to a conversation between God the Son and God the Father. As if that weren’t enough, Moses and Elijah returned from the dead to join the summit. It was a classic “mountaintop experience”! Nevertheless, the three disciples failed miserably to conduct themselves properly. First, they fell asleep. When Peter awoke, he began promoting his hastily constructed plan until God the Father silenced him!
The other nine disciples didn’t fare any better. They were unable to deliver a boy with an evil spirit from his tormentor. The nine informed the boy’s distraught father that they had done all they could for his son, but it hadn’t been enough. When Jesus returned, he uttered one of his most withering rebukes: “You unbelieving and perverse generation, how long will I be with you? How long must I put up with you?” (Matt. 17:17). Both on the mountaintop and in the valley, the disciples had failed. We tend to think that Peter, James, and John were given the greater assignment, but the Bible doesn’t say so. It was a privilege to accompany Jesus to the mountaintop, but it was also an undeserved honor to minister to a demon-possessed boy in the valley. Jesus would teach his disciples that one type of Christian experience isn’t superior to the other. An encounter with Christ is sublime, regardless of where it occurs.
…And the Spaces between
On another occasion, Jesus taught the multitudes by the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:1-34). Surely that day was a mountaintop ministry experience! The crowds were so thick that the disciples had to get Jesus into a boat and push off from shore to prevent him from being crushed. The following day, Jesus would take the disciples to confront a man possessed by a legion of demons. Another glorious mountaintop moment!
But between those two encounters, the twelve sailed at night through a terrifying storm. That journey was merely the commute between Point A and Point B. Nothing important was expected to occur while they were in transit. Yet during that night, Jesus calmed the wind and waves with a verbal rebuke. So miraculous was that moment that the disciples asked, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!” (Mark 4:41). The disciples expected God to act powerfully when he taught the multitudes or confronted the powers of evil. But a commute? That was ordinary.
In ministry, we expect God to work when we preach before thousands or host special programs. But what about after the crowd has left? What about when we are merely making a hospital visit or driving home from a meeting? Could it be that God is much more present and active in our life and ministry than we realize? Perhaps if we opened our spiritual eyes, we might discover that God isn’t just at work at Point A and Point B. Perhaps he is also with us during the commute! God certainly inhabits the spectacular. But he is just as present during ordinary moments. In fact, that’s often when God can seem closest to us.
Meet Henry Blackaby, Servant
My father, Henry Blackaby, was known for writing bestsellers and speaking to large audiences. But what made him a mighty man of God wasn’t his impressive ministry assignments but the way he experienced God in the seemingly ordinary moments of life. He didn’t measure the importance of his assignment by the number of people present but by whether God was at work. The following is an excerpt from Experiencing God in Everyday Life: A Journey Toward Spiritual Maturity.
God used Henry Blackaby, beloved author of Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, to impact millions of people around the world. He traveled the globe preaching to large audiences and meeting with world leaders. He wrote many popular books and mentored corporate CEOs. Those who knew him best, however, recognized that these “big” moments were not what defined his life and legacy. Most of Henry’s life consisted of countless hours of seemingly “ordinary” experiences. He approached each day with an awareness of God’s presence, eagerly waiting for the opportunity to participate in God’s activity around him. How we spend the ordinary, non-glamorous moments of our lives shapes and defines us.
Two decades before writing Experiencing God, Henry was called to serve as the pastor of Faith Baptist Church—a small congregation located on the sparsely populated prairies of western Canada, with only ten members. When Henry announced he was leaving a thriving church in California to help a dying church in Saskatchewan, some of his friends were concerned. One pastor warned, “Henry, if you move to Canada, no one will know where you are.” Henry replied, “God will know.”
Henry watched as God revived that dying church and led them to begin planting many more churches in the surrounding area. One Tuesday, Henry was preparing for a long drive north to lead a weekly Bible study at their mission church. At the edge of town, he called to check on his wife Marilynn. She was in tears; it had been a stressful day for her. She urged Henry to go, assuring him she would be ok.
He drove ninety lonely miles to lead the Bible study. Upon his arrival, he discovered that no one had chosen to attend. Instead of being angry or frustrated about what might appear to be a devastating waste of time, Henry spent that hour alone, praying for the fledgling church. He came to consider that evening and the drive home some of the sweetest communion with God in worship he had ever experienced.
The most impactful encounters with God are often not in the “big” moments, but in experiences we have along the way. These add up and shape us over time. Henry experienced sublime pleasure in God’s presence. He found joy any time he experienced God, habitually rising at 4:00 a.m. to meet with his Lord. His countenance glowed as he reverently told his children what God had shown him in the Scriptures that morning. Meeting with God was the most important item on his schedule. Some people start their day with God out of a sense of obligation or a desire to seek spiritual wisdom for the coming tasks. For Henry, walking with Jesus did not lead to a reward; Jesus was the reward.
Not long after Henry passed away in 2024, remembrances came pouring in. Curiously, not many people mentioned the sermons he preached, though he had preached powerful ones. Instead, they recalled how, as he spoke with them, he had given them his undivided attention. Several recalled how something he said as they transported him to or from the airport changed their life. One man recalled a time when he was unexpectedly given the opportunity to speak with Henry: “Those ten minutes changed my life.”
Henry lived with a profound awareness that God was actively at work. Whether speaking to a large audience or just one person, visiting the White House or making a long commute to an empty Bible study room, Henry was aware of God’s presence and was always ready to join God’s work around him. Every moment with God was important as he learned to see God in the countless opportunities present throughout the routines of each day.
When you walk closely with God, you can experience him just as meaningfully while driving home after a ministry assignment as you can while standing before an audience of thousands. God’s presence is what makes ministry rewarding, not the number of people who express appreciation for your efforts. My father eventually took what he learned about God during those long drives down prairie highways and put it in the book Experiencing God. Those quiet moments with God transformed my father into the man of God he became. That time wasn’t wasted. Time spent in God’s presence never is.
Rejoice in the spectacular moments God grants you on the mountaintop, but remain spiritually alert in the valley as well. Prepare yourself for the ministry God has for you at Points A and B, but don’t be surprised if your greatest experiences with God take place on the journey.
