Exactly. And the disciples are almost a deliberate demonstration that efficiency is not the highest value in God’s economy.
From a purely human management perspective, Jesus made some puzzling choices. 😄 He chose men who misunderstood His parables, argued about status, tried to prevent children from reaching Him, wanted to call fire from heaven, fell asleep when He asked them to watch, fled when He was arrested, and—in Peter’s case—openly contradicted Him and later denied knowing Him (Matthew 16:22–23; 18:1; 19:13; Luke 9:54; Matthew 26:40, 56, 69–75).
And Jesus knew all of this before He chose them.
“He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles.”
— Luke 6:13
So their weakness was not an unforeseen complication in Jesus’ otherwise excellent ministry strategy.
It was somehow incorporated into His purpose.
🌱 Jesus was producing people, not merely results
If Jesus’ only objective had been to disseminate information about the kingdom as rapidly and accurately as possible, there were surely more efficient methods.
He could preach without interruption.
He could avoid explaining the same things repeatedly.
He could prevent theological misunderstandings before they occurred.
He could perform miracles without disciples mishandling situations around Him.
But Jesus was doing something beyond announcing the kingdom.
He was forming people who would eventually participate in it.
That requires something very different from merely transmitting information.
“Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach.”
— Mark 3:14
I love the order there.
Before:
“that He might send them…”
comes:
“that they might be with Him.”
The kingdom would eventually be proclaimed through them, but first the kingdom had to work deeply in them.
And that takes time.
🐌 God seems remarkably unhurried about certain things
This is one of the places where God’s ways can bewilder us.
Jesus had roughly three years of public ministry.
We might think:
“Lord, time is limited. Perhaps don’t spend so much of it explaining things privately to twelve people who still don’t understand.” 😄
Yet Jesus repeatedly withdraws with them.
“And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples.”
— Mark 4:34
That seems inefficient if maximum immediate reach is the goal.
But suppose the goal includes relationship, formation, participation, and eventually multiplication.
Then suddenly it looks entirely different.
Jesus wasn’t merely preparing sermons.
He was preparing men.
And people cannot normally be formed with the efficiency of machines.
🤔 This challenges our definition of “waste”
We often evaluate circumstances by asking:
“Could this have been accomplished faster?”
God may be asking something closer to:
“What am I accomplishing in these people while accomplishing this?”
Those are radically different measurements.
Take Israel in the wilderness.
God could have transported Israel from Egypt to Canaan instantly.
He didn’t.
And Scripture actually tells us something about why:
“And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”
— Deuteronomy 8:2
The wilderness was not merely space between Egypt and Canaan.
It was part of God’s work.
If the only objective were getting Israel geographically from slavery to the promised land, much of the wilderness experience looks terribly inefficient. But God was not merely moving a population.
He was forming a people.
That distinction changes everything.
The destination mattered enormously, but what Israel would become in relationship with God mattered too.
They had to learn dependence. They had to discover what was in their own hearts. They had to experience God’s faithfulness. They had to learn that bread ultimately comes from Him, that victory comes from Him, that guidance comes from Him, that His presence distinguishes them from every other nation.
And those things cannot simply be reduced to information.
God could tell Israel, “You depend upon Me.”
But there is a difference between knowing that proposition and waking up in a wilderness where yesterday’s manna cannot sustain you today.
There is a difference between being told, “I am faithful,” and discovering His faithfulness over years of circumstances in which you repeatedly have nowhere else to turn.
That brings us back to the disciples.
🌱 The stumbling itself became part of their formation
Peter’s failures were not good things in themselves. Sin does not become good simply because God uses it.
But Christ was capable of incorporating even Peter’s failures into Peter’s formation.
Peter confidently declares:
“Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble.”
— Matthew 26:33
That is Peter before the courtyard.
Later comes a very different Peter.
By John 21, Jesus asks him three times:
“Do you love Me?”
— John 21:15–17
And then entrusts His sheep to him.
That is extraordinary.
If we were designing an efficient leadership-development program, Peter’s denial would look like catastrophic failure.
Jesus does not approve the denial.
But neither does He discard Peter.
Instead, Peter emerges knowing something about himself that perhaps no lecture could have taught him so deeply:
Peter cannot sustain Peter.
And that lesson becomes enormously important for someone who will eventually stand before crowds, perform miracles, lead others, suffer persecution, and become prominent in the early Church.
The man who once said, essentially,
“Even if everybody else fails, I won’t,”
needed to discover the danger of confidence in himself.
Jesus had already warned him:
“Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you…”
— Luke 22:31–32
And then comes something remarkable:
“And when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
— Luke 22:32
Jesus sees beyond Peter’s collapse to the usefulness of a restored Peter.
Even the failure becomes something through which Peter will eventually be equipped to strengthen others.
🐌 So perhaps God’s apparent “inefficiency” is partly the patience of love
Machines are optimized.
People are formed.
We increasingly live in a world obsessed with reducing friction: faster communication, faster transportation, faster computation, faster production, faster answers.
And there is nothing inherently wrong with efficiency.
But we can unconsciously project that value onto God.
Then we look at our own lives and wonder:
Why is this taking so long?
Why doesn’t God simply remove this weakness?
Why must I learn this again?
Why doesn’t He immediately resolve this situation?
Why does sanctification take decades?
Why doesn’t God simply download mature Christian character into us at conversion?
And perhaps part of the answer is that God isn’t merely interested in obtaining a result from us.
He is interested in us.
That is a radically different objective.
🌳 God grows things
Scripture repeatedly uses organic imagery for spiritual life.
Seed.
Vine.
Branches.
Fruit.
Trees.
Harvest.
Growth.
Jesus says:
“First the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.”
— Mark 4:28
There is sequence.
There is development.
There is time.
God certainly can act instantaneously. Scripture is filled with sudden acts of God.
But when He forms people, He very often works through processes.
And that means what looks like an irritating delay from our perspective may be the very environment in which something God values is developing.
🤲 And participation itself requires patience
This connects directly with where our discussion began.
If God simply did everything instead of us, everything could be astonishingly efficient.
But if He chooses to do things with us, He has willingly incorporated creaturely limitation into the process.
Think about Jesus sending the disciples to feed the five thousand.
They immediately see the impossibility.
Jesus could simply have caused everyone in the crowd to become full.
Instead:
“You give them something to eat.”
— Mark 6:37
Then they bring what little food is available.
Jesus blesses it.
Jesus multiplies it.
The disciples distribute it.
And afterward:
the disciples collect the leftovers.
Jesus has placed human hands throughout the miracle.
Not because divine power needed twelve deliverymen.
He could have bypassed them entirely.
But they are being taught something by participating that merely watching would not have taught in quite the same way.
They discover:
What I have is insufficient.
Then:
What Christ has is sufficient.
And finally:
His sufficiency can pass through my insufficient hands to others.
That is practically the entire Christian ministry in miniature.
❤️ God could do it faster without us—and still chooses us
That becomes almost breathtaking when you think about it.
God knows exactly how slow we are.
He knows how easily we misunderstand.
He knows how often we must relearn.
He knows our limitations before He calls us.
Jesus was never surprised by Peter.
Never surprised by Thomas.
Never surprised by Philip asking another question.
Never surprised by James and John getting things wrong.
And still:
“As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
— John 20:21
That is astonishing trust—not trust based upon autonomous human competence, but confidence in what God Himself can accomplish through dependent human beings.
Paul later describes the principle beautifully:
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:7
Perhaps the cracks in the vessel are not an obstacle to God’s purpose in quite the way we imagine.
They make unmistakably clear where the treasure came from.
✨ God’s question may therefore be larger than ours
We ask:
“How quickly can we get there?”
God may be accomplishing something much larger:
“What will you know of Me when we arrive?”
“What will you have learned about yourself?”
“What kind of person will you have become?”
“What will you have learned about dependence?”
“Will you merely possess the gift, or will you know the Giver?”
And suddenly the wilderness, the stumbling disciples, Peter’s long formation, Israel’s repeated lessons, and even our own painfully gradual sanctification begin to fit into the same pattern.
The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line.
But God’s purpose is not merely to move us between two points.
He is bringing many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10), conforming us to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29), and bringing us into fellowship with Himself (1 Corinthians 1:9).
So yes, Jesus could have accomplished His ministry without twelve stumbling men trailing behind Him.
It would probably have looked cleaner.
Faster.
Less frustrating.
More “efficient.”
But then we would lose something that the Gospel reveals about God:
He is powerful enough to accomplish His purpose without us, yet gracious enough to accomplish His purpose while bringing us along.
And perhaps one of the wonders of redemption is that someday, when God’s work in us is complete, we will discover that He was never merely trying to get us somewhere.
He was teaching us to walk with Him on the way there.
