Don’t Give Up… God Isn’t Finished With You Yet!

‘Get Mark and bring him with you,’ Timothy read, his eyes sympathetically fixed on his friend, ‘for he is very useful to me for ministry’.

John Mark gasped…

Two decades after he had deserted the great apostle, Paul was sending for him. It was difficult to take in. Paul asking for me?! And as the ground swayed beneath his feet, John Mark felt the comforting hands of those who could only guess at what this meant to the man who had often felt the ghost of failure cast its dark shadow over his life.

They could never understand.

Never understand the shame of what he’d done. Never understand what it was like to walk away from God’s calling on his life. Never understand the anguish of that journey home: to be looked on as a failure, a traitor even. Neither could those friends surrounding him now ever comprehend the pain of accusations made behind his back, or what it was like to experience guilt rise regularly in his throat like bile after tainted fish. Except for one person. Peter. Peter, whose failure had been weighed in the scales of man’s judgment as worse than even his.

Barnabas may have given him a second chance, but Peter taught John Mark that God doesn’t simply hand out opportunities for us to do it better a second time round. Rather that God is a God of restoration. He forgives those who’ve messed up, makes new the failure, and gives enabling power to complete the tasks He gives us. If he hadn’t learnt that lesson John Mark would never have become Peter’s interpreter, assistant, fellow-worker, and trusted writer of all that Peter had seen and learned when he had personally walked with Jesus. That’s not merely a second chance. That’s a new start in life! (Extract from Failure: John Mark, God Isn’t Fished with You Yet)

Retelling Bible stories has nothing to do with making it up as you go along! With the greatest respect for the biblical text, I have researched the world surrounding the stories of John Mark, and five others in the Bible, to produce a narrative that peels back the layers revealing God’s working inspite of the disasters they lived through. Added to this is a section on what we can learn from them today, including notes for personal Bible study.

So, whether you feel a failure like John Mark; trapped like Abigail; spoiled by sin like the Woman of Samaria; tormented by guilt like Judah, or aging like Simeon and Anna, you’ll discover that ‘God Isn’t Finished With You Yet’. He never gives up on us.

God Isn't Finished With You Yet Life Lessons on Not Giving Up By Catherine Campbell Catherine Campbell vividly retells the stories of real people from the Bible with difficult and sometimes painful lives, who struggled to see God’s path for them. Abigail was trapped in marriage to a fool. John Mark ran away from his friends. The Samaritan woman faced shame in the society of her day. Judah sinned against Tamar and Joseph. Simeon and Anna had the challenges of old age. But God hadn’t finished with any of them. With Life Lessons reflections to encourage us to respond biblically to our own life circumstances, and questions for personal reflection or group discussion, Catherine Campbell helps us see what the Bible tells us – God isn’t finished with you yet!

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