Besides everything else

Do you know of someone who seems steady, constant and unflappable – in spite of being in-demand, excessively burdened and managing great responsibilities? When the rest of us are sadly twirling our plethora of spinning plates, these high-achieving people are serving up banquets on theirs with peaceful demeanors and compassionate smiles.

How do some people not just endure but prosper in the midst of chaos, craziness and even adversity?

Yet as he writes to the church in Corinth in the first century, he gives us a glimpse of just some of his experiential resumé:

• served prison time frequently
• flogged severely
• exposed to death
• received 40 lashes five different times
• beaten with rods three different times
• stoned once
• shipwrecked three times
• spent over 24 hours in the open sea (as in clinging to wreckage)
• faced “dangers” everywhere he went
• often hungry, cold, sleepless, naked ¹
• snake bit ²

This is one person. How in the world?! How does one cram all this experience and activity into one lifetime?

Initially, Saul (Paul) was convinced that this Jesus character was a false Messiah, and it was his supposed God-given responsibility to eradicate new converts to the Jesus “cult” known as “The Way.”

“In fact, I myself was convinced that it was necessary to do many things in opposition to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” (Acts 26:9)

However, everything changed when as a Pharisee on another mission to hound these new “Christians,” he personally encountered Jesus. Saul radically committed his life to convincing others of what he had become convinced of – that Jesus was God Himself who came to save us from our sin.

“…I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.” (2 Timothy 1:12)

So this former Pharisee then traveled more of the Roman Empire than most of its leaders, wrote 2/3 of the New Testament, became of the most preeminent theologians and beloved apostles of the new church of Jesus Christ. And he was beaten, stoned, snake bit, shipwrecked….

And he was “steady, constant and unflappable.” How? Paul said himself that in spite of all his experiences, he was not deterred, discouraged or destroyed:

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9)

Let me throw one other thing in the mix that every pastor and church leader would “amen” to and that will make us crave the constancy that Paul’s life revealed in spite of chaos.

In the passage where Paul reveals all his ordeals, he also says:

Besides all this…

“Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” (2 Corinthians 11:28)

There’s a real, constant, moment-by-moment pressure that spiritual leaders face and feel. It’s the weight of the care and concern that they carry for their church. A good shepherd cares for his sheep. Ministry knows no 9-to-5 boundaries. It’s a constant awareness and even a privilege that pastors experience.

And yet, by all accounts, Paul serenely faced his life with joyful confidence. He not only endured but he inspired.

How? How did Paul remain steady, constant and unflappable? (and how do others do so?)

They do not live on their own strength and resources. They live dependent on an external source of provided strength. Paul’s was found in Jesus.

“Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

I’d encourage you to look deeply at those people in your life who seem to rise above hardship with joyful demeanors. Study them. Ask them even. “What is that propels you forward in spite of hard things, complex schedules, and demands of others?” You may discover they have no pride in themselves but that they quickly point to Another who fuels and feeds them.

In too many instances to be coincidental, you’ll find Jesus upholding these steady, constant and unflappable souls.

1. “…in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness..” (2 Corinthians 11:23-27) [↩]
2. Acts 28:3 describes another shipwreck (assuming that Acts was written after 2 Corinthians) in which after rescue, Paul was bitten by a poisonous snake.[↩]