Servanthood and Unreasonableness

One of the greatest problems I have with learning to serve is learning to put up with the unreasonableness of others.

People are unreasonable.  This should not come as an alert to anyone.  There are merely different  types of unreasonableness.  Some unreasonableness is just merely quirky:  people who like their desks clean or the coffee always fresh or papers aligned a certain way.  Maybe its a bit strange, maybe even a bit crazy, but quirky - and manageable.

But then there is the other kind of unreasonableness.  The kind of unreasonableness that reveals itself in demands or bad treatment, the sort that demands "Thou shalt do it My way" or the passing down of tasks to do without any consideration of how they will be done, the constant coming back to make something done their way without actually wanting to do the work themselves - or worse, the punishment simply because you fail to act precisely as is requested.

At best, these sorts of behaviors can be claimed as unreasonable.

It is somewhat amazing to me how quickly I can move from trying to be helpful and servant minded to a towering sense of rage when this sort of unreasonableness presents itself.  It's not quite that it immediately brings itself up:  it's that it builds, moving from a vague sense of annoyance to an active sense of resentment to - in its worst manifestations - a blinding sense of anger, of being treated as no more than a thing, a sort of human extension of the will of another.  All personality, all uniqueness, all value seems stripped away.  You are merely a pliers with hands, a computer entry device with a voice.

How do I make sense of this in the quest to serve?  Let us not kid ourselves:  be a servant, and human nature will quickly come to treat and view you as nothing more than a stepping stone to their ambitions, their goals, their outward appearances.  Whatever good you may have originally envisioned you were performing, whatever witness you may have been trying to give too often seems to get lost beneath the layers being a smaller cog in another machine.  It seemingly destroys the simple act of serving - after all, what point in being a servant, following Christ, when your service is either invisible or viewed as another tool in the tool box?

Is this not where faith may again play a role?  We are obedient because God calls us to obedience and assures us that all things work to our good and His glory.  All things, not just those of which we have "I am serving as a servant of Christ" blazoned on them like a neon sign.  Just because one person sees us in this light does not mean that all around us do not see us that same way.  Our influence is more often far deeper than what we can imagine:  more is seen out of the corner of the eye than is ever let on by most.

And the anger?  At it's most fundamental level, it's sin.  It's selfishness.  It's pride.  It's me demanding my own rights and my own way rather than submitting to another.  Does that make it easier to deal with?  Hardly.  But just because one can't deal with something doesn't change the facts.

We are called as Christians to be servants.  We are not told - at least in this life -that all acts of servant hood are recognized.  But we are told that, eventually, they will be.