Friendship in the Wake of Failure

John Mark failed. Paul and Barnabas took him along on a missionary journey, and partway through, John Mark quit. He went home, left the work unfinished, let everyone down. Luke records it in a single verse (Acts 13:13).

It may not have been his first failure. Many think this is the same John Mark (the one who wrote the gospel bearing that name) who fled the Garden of Gethsemane in fear, abandoning Jesus Christ at his arrest, years earlier (Mark 14:51-52).

Later, Barnabas, Paul's partner and John Mark's cousin, proposed giving him another shot. Paul wanted nothing to do with it. A sharp disagreement ensued. A vibrant partnership ended, all because of John Mark.

The Bible doesn't tell us what John Mark felt in response, but it's not hard to imagine. Probably guilt, shame, and embarrassment, the kinds of things that drive most of us into isolation.

We tell ourselves that we need to get ourselves together first. We will do the quiet work of repair on our own, atone for what we did, and re-present ourselves when we're worth something again. We will be accepted and loved when we make ourselves acceptable and lovable.

Lies.

Those quiet, lonely places don't stay quiet. The voice of shame doesn't take a break because you've asked for some space. It gets louder. It fills the room. And the voice we need most, the one that actually tells the truth about us, is exactly the voice isolation cuts us off from.

Thankfully, John Mark didn't only have failure. He had a friend: Barnabas.

Paul went one direction and Barnabas went another, with a continued commitment to the one who hadn't honored his own. That's the last we hear of Barnabas in Acts. It's not the last we hear of John Mark.

Years later, in a letter written from prison, Paul asked for him by name. Restored. Trustworthy. Useful, he called him, someone he actually wanted at his side (2 Timothy 4:11; Colossians 4:10). What happened in between? We don't entirely know. But we know what didn't: isolation.

Are you recovering from a failure?

Are you tempted to believe the answer is to hide yourself until you heal?

You don't need isolation. You need a friend. You need a Barnabas, someone who walks with you before you have it together, who reminds you that God does not define you by your worst chapter.

And you need what Barnabas declared and demonstrated: the Word that tells the truth about who you are in Christ, the community that keeps speaking it over you, and the Table that says you are welcome here before you are fixed.

The Good Shepherd is looking for you. And He tends to find people through other people.

Don't make yourself hard to find.