The Cave: When Ministry Becomes Misery

By Scott Distler

God does not comfort us to make us comfortable; He comforts us to make us comforters!

Life is full of hurts and betrayals, especially when you are involved in ministry. Talk to any pastor who has been in ministry long enough and you will discover that they probably have the scars to show for it. Often these hurts and betrayals can lead us deep into the cave of despair which results in ministry becoming misery. That is the story of pastor and author, Scott Distler. In these pages, Distler looks at two heroes of the Old Testament who had similar experiences. Elijah found himself in the cave of despair and Joseph in the pit of betrayal. Using the principles seen in their stores as well as personal lessons learned during his own experience within the cave, Distler offers hope and help to anyone, especially pastors and those in ministry, who have found themselves on the bitter end of hurt and betrayal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636303970

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The Cave

When Ministry Becomes Misery

Scott Distler

ISBN 978-1-63630-396-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63630-397-0 (Digital)

Copyright © 2020 Scott Distler

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Table of Contents

Elijah and the Cave of Despair

Joseph and the Pit of Betrayal

One Flesh—Even in the Cave

Help! I’m in the Cave and I Can’t Get Out

The Giant outside the Cave

Afflicted but Not Crushed

Listening from inside the Cave

Understanding Forgiveness

Knowing When to Leave

Life after the Cave

Living with Purpose inside or outside the Cave

Introduction

In February of 2010, I entered the cave for the first time in twenty-three years of pastoral ministry. It would be months before I would begin the process of coming back out of that cave and taking steps to see my joy in ministry rekindled. Make no mistake about it, that journey back out of the cave would be very painstaking.

I had heard about the cave and even talked to those who had experienced it, but up until that time in my life, I not only had never been near the cave, I really didn’t think it was even possible that I ever could find myself inside of it, let alone become a long-term resident within its confines. In fact, I wondered if the cave really existed.

It did, in fact, exist. During those months that I lived in the cave, it was the absolute worst time period of my entire life. Over those months I sank deeper and deeper inside the cave until I finally hit rock bottom. It was then that I realized that there was just no way that I would find my way out of that cave without help.

Four months after entering the cave, when I was just on the verge of beginning to take steps that would be necessary for me to leave its darkness, I was having lunch at a restaurant in the small Pennsylvania town where I pastored a rather large church. My lunch was with the pastor of a recent church plant about an hour away. We did not know each other real well, but we mutually admired each other’s ministries from a distance. We had gotten together once before a few years earlier and realized we shared a very similar philosophy when it came to ministry. We had arranged to meet again just to touch base.

At this lunch, I transparently shared the whole story of those past four months and my journey into the cave. He listened sympathetically, and it felt good to just bear my burden with someone else who was in ministry but not a part of my own local church. At the end of our long conversation about my experience in the cave, he said something off the cuff.

He told me that when this whole trauma was over that I seriously needed to consider putting down in writing all that I learned from my cave experience. I could see his wheels spinning as he said those words. He was just a bit younger than me, and he had never experienced the cave himself. But he was not so naïve as to think that he would be able to keep out of that cave forever—very few pastors make it through their ministry life without, at some point, experiencing life inside the cave. He wanted to learn from my experience in the cave in order to help if and when the time came that he found himself inside the cave as well.

Honestly, I didn’t think much about his request until a couple days later when I was reading in the first chapter of 2 Corinthians. The counselor I was seeing had encouraged me to pour into this book of the New Testament for my personal devotions since in it Paul shares about how he was mistreated and falsely accused in ministry. These verses caused me to think of my recent conversation with this pastor:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same suffering which we also suffer; and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort. (2 Cor. 1:3–7 NASB)

As I mulled over those verses, there were two very clear principles that stood out to me:

First, God can comfort us in all of our suffering. This made me consider what the word comfort really meant. Most people today define comfort as God taking away my problem. But that is not its definition. The word literally means to come along side of. That is how God comforts us. He comes alongside of us in the most difficult times of our lives and walks with us each and every step of the way. That is what the psalmist declared in Psalm 23:4 when he wrote that even when he traveled in the valley of the shadow of death, he did not have to fear. Why? Because God would take his problem away? No! He did not have to fear because You are with me! Our Shepherd comes alongside of us and walks with us in the most difficult circumstances of our lives.

Second, God wants to bring us comfort (come alongside of us) in our suffering so that we can then bring His comfort to others by coming alongside of those who go through the same type of suffering. God doesn’t comfort us to make us comfortable. He comforts us to make us comforters. He comes alongside of us so that we can come alongside of others who walk through the same pain that we have experienced.

That seemed to be the final confirmation I needed to go through the process of putting my journey into the cave and back out again in written form, sharing the lessons I have learned along the way. When I was in the cave, I talked to others who could tell me stories of their cave experience or the cave experience of another, but nowhere was I able to find one person’s written story of what they learned through their cave journey. There was no written handbook of any kind to guide me. I sure could have used that. That is the purpose of this project—to put my cave journey into writing showing the events, the results, the feelings, the despair, and most importantly, the hope that still exists that there is ministry life ahead on the other side of the cave.

Please recognize that I am writing from only one perspective—mine. I am very aware that there are two sides to every story and multiple angles in which any situation can be viewed. Others whose actions or words are referred to in this project may well have a different memory and interpretation of the accounts I share. I accept that. I am simply writing from my own perspective and from my own memory—both of which are fallible. So please know that this project is written with full knowledge that it only shares my side of the journey.

One of the things that I will strive faithfully not to do is to detail the events of church leaders that caused my pain and my withdrawal inside of the cave. This book is not meant to be some sort of tell-all in order to finally get my side of the story out into the open, nor is it meant to be seen as sour grapes in order to get other people’s sympathy. As you will see later in this writing, I believe that telling the story simply to get my side out or to make the ones who hurt me look bad has no profit whatsoever in my journey toward complete forgiveness. This book, instead, is designed to share what life was like for me in the cave and the lessons I learned during the year that I spent a majority of my time inside its dark walls.

The first section of this book gives biblical principles of the cave of ministry despair and the pit of ministry betrayal. I was not the first one to experience this hurt and despair in ministry. Long ago, the prophet Elijah discovered the cave of despair, and it was the patriarch, Joseph, who found himself deep in the pit of betrayal. From the stories of these two Old Testament characters, we see principles regarding the cave of ministry despair and the pit of ministry betrayal which can help us find our way back out and actually find ourselves growing spiritually in the process.

The second section of this book deals with practical lessons I learned in my journey in and out of the cave. At the end of each of these sections, I have included several practical suggestions that can help you prepare for the cave or help you to find your way out of the cave if you are already living inside of it.

My prayer is that this finished project will provide comfort and hope to other pastors and ministry leaders who find themselves in the cave. With that in mind, let me now introduce you to the cave—the place where ministry becomes misery.

Section 1

Biblical Principles

Chapter 1

Elijah and the Cave of Despair

On June 9, 2010, over three months before I would resign my position as senior pastor of a large, vibrant, and growing church, I wrote this down in my journal from deep inside the cave:

It has gotten as bad as ever for me in regard to ministry. I have never felt this low and have never before felt like everything was so out of control and rolling toward imminent disaster. How could something that seemed to be going along so good suddenly take such a turn for the worse?

The Cave 101—I don’t remember that class being offered when I was in Bible college, training and preparing for a life of pastoral ministry. It should have been. After all, very few pastors will get through a lifetime of ministry without experiencing the cave. In fact, it will be the cave that will end many a pastor’s existence in ministry. I know. I have been there. It almost ended mine.

I know the cave all too well…what it looks like, what it feels like, and what it sounds like. I even know what the cave smells like, and believe me when I say that that cave-like aroma may never fully leave my nostrils. It is a smell that I will always remember and one that will impact me the rest of my life.

The cave is not a new concept. One of the greatest Old Testament characters in the Hebrew Scriptures may have just been the one to discover the cave.

Then he [Elijah] came there to a cave and lodged there (1 Kings 19:9 NASB).

As I read through Elijah’s story, I can’t help but reflect on a time in my life when I was in a similar cave of ministry despair. In fact, I have found that most pastors have encountered this cave at some point in their ministry. The cave is the place where ministry becomes misery. If you are a pastor and you have not come upon this cave as of yet, just wait; chances are that it is still in your future.

From the story of Elijah, we see principles that can accomplish several things in our lives. First, it can help us to identify when we are on the verge of entering that cave of despair. This is crucial because often we don’t realize we are engulfed in this cave until we are well within its dark, cold walls. Second, these principles can help us to be proactive in doing all that we can to avoid entering the cave. And finally, if you are already in that cave, I believe that God can use these principles from the story of Elijah to help get you out of the cave.

The first thing that we need to understand is that the cave can become reality even to the most successful of pastors and ministry leaders. Elijah was no run-of-the-mill prophet. Hundreds of years after his ministry was over, the Holy Spirit of God inspired James, when writing that the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much, to choose Elijah as an example of this fact.

The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain for on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit. (Jas. 5:16–18 NASB)

The word effective carries the idea of energy. Of all the incredible men and women of prayer seen in the Old Testament (Daniel, Job, Moses, David, and Hannah), the Holy Spirit guided James to pick Elijah who, with energy, prayed that it would not rain—and it didn’t. And then he prayed that it would rain—and it did (see 1