At a recent gathering, someone asked me, “What do you do during the week?” I tried to explain what my schedule looks like and what I do from day to day. What I perhaps should have said is that I spend my time worrying about people.
In 2 Corinthians 11:16-29, the apostle Paul writes of the suffering he experienced in ministry. Some came as a result of persecution (24-25), some from difficult circumstances (26-27), and some came from concerns about the health of churches and believers (28-29). While I have not experienced persecution as Paul did, I have faced the difficulty of travel for ministry on occasion, and especially the pressure of being concerned for peoples’ spiritual health, or as Paul phrased it,
the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern? (28-29, NASB).
I can identify with his latter statement. It’s just hard to explain that to people.
