Chapter 6 - Hidden Preparation: Systems, Standards, and Reach

During my early years working with the State, I did not think of what I was learning as spiritual preparation. I thought of it as administration—policies, procedures, funding requirements, compliance standards, program expectations. Necessary work, but not sacred work.

Yet God often does His deepest work in our lives in places we might not see or label as holy.

I became involved in implementing statewide best-practice models—ACT, DBT, Illness Management and Recovery, and Peer Supports. These were not simply clinical approaches, but systems of care requiring consistency and accountability. I learned that good intentions alone do not sustain healthy work. Structure matters. Clarity matters.

At the time, I believed I was simply learning how to do my job well.

Only later did I understand that God was teaching me how to care for people through systems, not only within relationships.

Through systems thinking and quality improvement work, I began to see how individual struggles are often shaped by surrounding structures, and how decisions made far from the front lines carry real consequences. What once felt fragmented began to make sense.

These lessons later became essential in my work with ministry teams and missionaries. Many struggles were not failures of faith, but the result of unclear expectations, anxious leadership, and systems that quietly demanded endurance without support.

During this same season, another form of preparation was unfolding.

Long before virtual counseling became common, I was already using teleconferencing technology to work statewide. It began as a practical solution to distance and time. Later, I helped move required training to a web-based platform—expanding access and reducing unnecessary burden.

Only later did I see what God was teaching me: how to care for people at a distance, how to remove barriers, how to extend reach without losing integrity.

Years later, these same tools became essential in my counseling and missions-related work. Video-based counseling allowed me to walk with missionaries across regions and time zones. Online training became a way to support those serving far from traditional centers of care.

Technology did not replace relationship. It carried it.

Looking back, I see that God was forming not only my heart during the long middle of my career and life, but also my hands.

What felt administrative was actually formative.

What looked like preparation without purpose was provision in advance.

Once again, God wasted nothing.

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Where might God be forming you through work that feels ordinary or technical?

What skills are you using today simply because they are practical—skills God may later redeem as tools of care?