Servant Problems

To be alive is to face risk. To be alive is to risk death, injury, sickness, disease, anxiety, embarrassment, shame, rejection, loneliness, betrayal. And because these are risks we must run necessarily, by virtue of our being alive, they subject us to the greatest risk of all–the risk of our spiritual destruction, which is despair.

We spend a goodly portion of our lives struggling to achieve some measure of security against these and other risks. We build nest-eggs to secure ourselves against the risk of poverty. We follow fashions to secure ourselves against the risk of embarrassment over our personal appearance. We buy insurance to secure ourselves against the financial risks of sickness and disease. We cling to certain persons to secure ourselves against the risk of loneliness. We keep others at arm’s length to secure ourselves against the risk of rejection. We keep our own counsel to secure ourselves against the risk of ridicule. We get regular medical checkups and see our dentists…