tomorrow is my first Sunday without a church

As you know, everyone from the province of Asia has deserted me—even Phygelus and Hermogenes. (2 Timothy 1:15)

Tomorrow is my first Sunday without a church. It is also my first Sunday without a denomination. If I was leaving one, I was going into another. Now I am not.

And I am feeling cast adrift. I am not sure what I am going to do.

I have been deserted by my church. It is not the first time, but it will probably be the last.

When we get back to Missouri, we will probably go to the Firm Foundation church, a Foursquare church, but I will just be a member.

When last I went, I was moving toward ordination in the Foursquare group. Now I am not. I will never be tied into a denomination or a church like I have been in the past. I will be, from now on, independent.

It is a strange thing to be cast adrift. I still belong to God, and he loves me. That I know, for, as the song says, the Bible tells me so. And I have not known the Bible to lie.

I have not known God to lie either, although life in him has not always been pleasant. There have been many times Ella and I have had real troubles and he has not stepped in to address them.

However, he is still my King.

There was a scene in the movie Robin and Marian that always stuck with me. the old Robin had found the old Marian, who was living in a convent. As they were talking about their lives in the years since they had seen each other, he mentioned being with King Richard. He talked about many of the atrocities he had seen the king commit and things he had done in the king’s name that had been unpleasant.

Marian asked him, Why did you stay with him. Robin looked baffled at the question. Because he is my king. Where else would I go?

That is how I feel. A lot of bad things have happened to us in the name of God and in our service to him. Yet we stay. And the reason is, he is my King. To whom would I possibly go?

I know he is in control. A world in which God was not in control is too horrible to imagine. He has to be.

Yet I know that simply because he is control, bad things happen. And they have happened to us.

I suppose that the problem is that the sense of failure is so great. It weighs on me. there are things I could have done that would have made me a more effective minister, but the depression of failure has weighed me down to where at times I can barely function.

Yet I still remain in his service. To whom would I go? He is my King. He is my Lord.

I do not like all he does, but I still worship him.

Job felt the same way. His predicament in life was nothing more than the result of a bet between God and the devil. And not only that, but he couldn’t tell Job, because that would ruin the bet. Job had to go through it by himself.

And so do I. And so does my sweet and lovely wife, who has been nothing more than a sweet, innocent and simple worshiper of God.

She suffers too.

That makes me mad, quite frankly. But it is too bad. And it changes nothing.

I am feeling deserted, by all but my wife. She stands by me. unfortunately, there is no one to stand by her except me, and I am so damaged.

Come, Lord Jesus and let us be through with it all.