Where God is forming you now: God’s Forming Work in Women Leaders

God’s forming work in women leaders rarely announces itself, yet steadily shapes calling, character, and leadership long before recognition arrives. Many serve faithfully in seasons that feel ordinary by cultural standards. The work continues, the calling still feels true, but usual markers of success don’t apply. Advent gives us language for these moments—not to fix or push past, but to notice how God forms us when alignment matters more than visibility.

It’s hard to resist metrics like momentum and traction in a world that elevates position and power. These measures shape how success is named and leadership valued, but they rarely tell the whole story—and often pull us toward something less grounded and more performative. Holding and maintaining power always comes at a cost. We live in systems of power at every level—family, community, work, politics—so it’s no wonder we wrestle with what faithfulness looks like. Generation after generation, power easily distorts what begins with good intentions.

This is precisely the dynamic God interrupts in the incarnation of Christ. God chooses a woman—a young, marginalized, uncredentialed woman with no formal power or influence—and entrusts her with a world-changing purpose. It is a quiet assignment. A slow one. And yet, it is entirely consistent with the way God has always worked and continues to work today.

Here’s the point: quiet seasons are not interruptions to purpose. They are often where leadership is clarified, deepened, and strengthened through the faithful practices of ordinary, everyday moments.

Earlier this Advent, we reflected on hope in the waiting—the invitation to live with expectancy even when answers feel delayed. Now we turn our attention to something closely related but distinct: how to live with purpose while God is forming something beneath the surface.

Advent Reveals God’s Forming Work in Women Leaders

Advent is one of my favorite seasons. It has always been a time of reflection and anticipation, but in later years, I feel its weight more deeply—the weight of loss, experience, and accumulated grief. Holidays can be complicated, and for many, this season carries both longing and sorrow. Yet Advent does not ask us to bypass what is heavy or hard. It invites us to slow down and hope while sitting with the unresolved, trusting that God’s promises are already unfolding.

Scripture tells us that God broke into the darkness with the light of Jesus, bringing salvation and life. That is good news.

Advent also teaches us something deeper about how God works. God’s forming work in women leaders follows the same pattern—beginning in ordinary, embodied, relational ways rather than through spectacle or speed. Rooted in remembrance, lament, and reflection, Advent shows a consistent truth: God begins His greatest work in places that rarely draw attention.

Of all the ways God could have interrupted humanity’s corruption, He chose incarnation. This mirrors God’s forming work in women leaders—nearness before recognition, faithfulness before visibility. Incarnation reveals God’s preference for nearness over performance, intimacy over spectacle. Advent’s light broke through darkness quietly, subversively, intentionally, and deliberately—not according to human expectations.

Because God is merciful, He did not rush the story. He prepared the way—sending a messenger, forming a people, allowing the promise to take shape over time. The arrival of Christ was the culmination of a long, faithful process—low and slow.

God does not rush formation. He inhabits it.

Faithfulness Before Visibility: God’s Formation in Leadership

This is a powerful truth for leadership development: God calls us to walk in ways that are truly good, right, and whole. There is no proving, striving, or earning here—even though everything in us is conditioned to lean that way. Instead, God’s invitation is quieter and deeper: to trust, listen, and follow what He is already doing in and through us.

Cultural expectations of leadership often emphasize power, position, and influence. As Christ-followers, we pursue something different—something formed by the way of Jesus rather than worldly metrics.

Leadership begins with leading ourselves well. This is formation—spiritual pathways shaping how we live, love, and lead over time. Hebrews 12 reminds us to trust the Lord’s discipline, not as punishment but as strengthening and restoration for what is weary and fragile:

“So take a new grip with your tired hands and strengthen your weak knees. Mark out a straight path for your feet so that those who are weak and lame will not fall but become strong.” —Hebrews 12:12–13 (NLT)

Learning is never purely intellectual. We are complex—mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical—and formation touches all of it. God’s work in flesh and blood shows that salvation and leadership unfold slowly, through steady renewal and partnership with the Holy Spirit.

Leadership is organic; growth may be slow, but influence develops through presence, consistency, and trust. Faithful investment over time yields enduring fruit. Much of the church’s most durable work is carried by leaders whose faithfulness is rarely visible.

Hidden work is not lesser work. It holds communities together. God’s forming work in women leaders is often quiet, yet it produces depth, steadiness, and unmistakable agency—leadership aligned with His purposes, long before recognition arrives.

Christ Is Present in God’s Forming Work in Women Leaders

The best leadership grows not from what we know, but from who we know—first and foremost, Jesus. This isn’t to dismiss skills or competence; they matter, but they are not the starting place. Our clearest model of leadership is found in Christ. Measured by the world’s standards of power or efficiency, His ministry often feels underwhelming to those seeking dominance rather than transformation.

Leadership in the way of Jesus looks different because He shaped leaders through attention, not urgency. Discipleship is a long game. Jesus lived with purpose and faced the frustration of followers slow to grasp the truth, yet He repeated the same message: love God, love one another.

He shaped leaders through relationship rather than recognition. We were created to flourish in community, not isolation. Despite cultural pulls toward individualism and self-promotion, Jesus consistently challenged distorted hierarchies of love, worth, and belonging. Leadership, in this way, is relational: invitational, honoring, and grounded in grace.

God’s forming work in women leaders often becomes visible not through momentum but through faithful presence. In God’s Kingdom, leadership success is measured by attentiveness that seeks understanding. Within that presence, trust forms—and trust carries people into new, uncharted places.

If your leadership right now looks like listening, tending, or holding space, Christ is not absent. In seasons that feel slow or quiet, lean into Him. He is actively forming you.

How God’s Forming Work in Women Leaders Strengthens Leadership

It is human nature to gravitate toward flashy and loud, because it’s easier to notice. But in stillness, we actually find space to discern the subtle nuances that lead into the deeper places of formation and becoming. 

The deliberate intentionality present in the quieter seasons helps us cultivate the attitude of Christ, which Paul exhorts to the Philippian church. I won’t quote the whole chapter, though it’s a passage worthy of meditation and ongoing reflection, but the passage highlights the point: 

“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges and took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on the cross.” Philippians 2:5-8

Cultivating the attitude of Christ helps us choose discernment over reactivity. Though we are naturally inclined to elevate ourselves, practicing godly attitudes strengthens our capacity to respond wisely and faithfully. This is what happens when we are grounded in perfect love.

Markers of this slow, intentional formation in ordinary moments include emotional resilience, integrity of calling, and collaborative, non-performative leadership. This maturity strengthens not just the leader, but the whole community, aligned with Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and given new life by God.

Even in a world that functions differently from God’s Kingdom, women are formed in God’s presence long before recognition. The quiet shadows—where hope anchors us—are not limitations, but structural reinforcements.

Practicing Attentiveness

Can I tell you something? The calling of God comes with God-powered agency—not to wield or lord over others, but to steward well. We often assume patience is the main fruit we need to hold, and that’s true to a degree. But the greater emphasis is on how we participate. What we’re really talking about is practicing attentiveness to what God is doing in us.

Some practical ways to lean into God’s forming work in women leaders include:

• Asking: What capacity is God strengthening in me right now?
• Naming where trust, wisdom, or steadiness is being built
• Reflecting on how current faithfulness is shaping future leadership
• Paying attention to what is becoming rooted, not what is accelerating

These intentions help reframe thought patterns and open the door to a vision far beyond what the human mind can imagine. This posture invites curiosity and wonder—both essential pathways to deeper understanding.

This is not about waiting for clarity. It’s about stewarding formation and faithfully participating in what God is already doing. Ruth Haley Barton’s book, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, is a great book for such a journey as this.

Shared Flourishing Grows From God’s Forming Work in Women Leaders

Here’s the thing: church and ministries thrive when leaders know how to lead without constant momentum. Let us not forget that most of the time, we don’t see the effects of growth until after the fact. Quietly formed leaders create cultures of trust, stability, and hope—that’s rock rock-solid foundation. 

True flourishing isn’t just something for ourselves; it’s the fruit of a collective formative growth that connects, supports, and holds the collective together. So, the formation that happens now, in the quiet shadows where there is no recognition or acclaim, actually becomes the fruit that sustains many later.

When you tend God’s forming work in your own life, communities are strengthened in ways that last.

Be confident. You are not behind. Purpose is present, even when clarity and pace are slow. God is forming something steady, not fragile. Hold onto hope, but wait with expectant peace that leans into restoration and revival of re-formation.

A Breath-Prayer

Inhale: Christ, present and forming,

Exhale: Let me steward this moment.