Distresses.

Paul used a term that means something like "spiritual claustrophobia." It's the kind of feeling you get when you drive around a blind curve and face two headlights coming in your direction in the same lane. It's the feeling of being trapped with no room to maneuver, no avenue of escape.

Any one of these pressures would be a heavy burden to bear, but Paul wanted his readers to know that the servant of the Lord can expect all three. But he wasn't through.

EXTERNAL DIFFICULTIES.

External Pressures Involving Physical Assault

Some of us have difficulty relating to this part of Paul's message because we have never faced the same degree of difficulty. The external pressures involved beatings, imprisonment and riots.

Long before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah, the prophet, looked forward to the time when the Messiah would make his entry in to the world. He said in Isaiah 42:1,

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.

In Isaiah 52:3, he said, ". . . my servant will act wisely." But he also spoke of this very same servant in Isaiah 53:3 and when the news didn't sound all that positive. "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering."

When you walk in the footsteps of that and you try to serve like that man, you will inevitably be subjected to misrepresentation, insults, slander and violent attack.

I'm not the kind of person who welcomes conflict. I'll drive around the block to avoid trouble, but my peace loving posture sometimes bothers me. I ask myself the question, "Could it be that my version of servanthood is so bland, so watered down, so bereft of real Christian spirit that it doesn't really threaten the power structures of the world." Sometimes we have irritated people because our own behavior has been abrasive, harsh and unkind. I don't think that that's what Paul had in mind. Paul was saying that when you live a Christ-like life, the very quality of that life will be threatening to some folks. If the way we live doesn't threaten and intimidate self-serving men and women, it may say that we are too much like them to upset them. Was the man right who said, "The trouble with Christians today is the fact that nobody wants to kills them?"

External Pressures Which Result from the Servant Lifestyle

Paul went on to say that when you serve, you can expect hard work, sleepless nights and hunger. Hunger is probably a better term in this context that fasting.

As I read those descriptions of the pressures facing a servant, I think about the excuses we give for not serving. We've got other things to do - bills to pay, people to see, appointments to keep, houses to maintain, yards to rake and cars to repair. On top of that we are trying to hold down full time jobs. And while we may never say it, we may be thinking somewhere in the back of our minds. "If I get too involved in serving my fellow-man, there's not going to be any time left for me."

I'm not trying to lay an artificial guilt trip on you. I'm not trying to manipulate you into getting more involved in some ministry task that you're not even excited about in the first place. We just need to understand what we ask for when we pray, "Make, me a servant, Lord. Make me like you." You just need to know that the price may be hard work, sleepless nights and hunger.

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